


The Devil Wears a Suit and Tie

by friedgalaxies



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Disabled Character, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn, Subterfuge, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:48:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 6
Words: 26,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21737119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/friedgalaxies/pseuds/friedgalaxies
Summary: Reverend, Reverend please come quickCause I've got somethin' to admitDaividh Thanatos Kindred "Kid" Death, resident horse wrangler and ex-barrel racer, is intent on spending as little time as possible with the new hands that have arrived to his family's ranch, lest his nerves be rended to shreds. He may have to go back on his word, though, when his father sets to retire soon and things get more than a little complicated.
Relationships: Black Star/Death the Kid, Death the Kid & Liz Thompson & Patty Thompson, Death the Kid & Shinigami-sama | Lord Death, Maka Albarn/Crona, Maka Albarn/Nakatsukasa Tsubaki
Comments: 49
Kudos: 56





	1. i met a man out in the sticks

**Author's Note:**

> i've always had a love for cowboy and rancher AUs but i finally worked up the gall to write one myself after reading @Sleepmarshes ' [Lodestar](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11787630/chapters/26582421). if you haven't read their fic yet i'd recommend you do so as well!

The bruised purple sky of evening rolled low over the desert, as it always did, carrying a silent admission for the night to start, for crickets and cicadas to begin their nightly spring song. Red dust whipped in curious curls with the warm twilight breeze, licking up the sides of buildings and peppering over sun-bleached fence posts, dry brush rustling with the gentle _shh, shh_ of a parent urging their infant to a dreamless sleep. Spring was just beginning, and the familiar nightsong was music to Daividh Thanatos Kindred “Kid” Death Jr.’s aching ears.

Death’s Wish Ranch was the largest cattle ranch this side of Nevada, with thirty-something thousand head calved, raised, branded, and sold a year, their numbers only climbing with each turn of the seasons. Beef Criollo, ebony hides a stark shadow against the red of the desert, moving in liquid rivers of ink over hundreds of acres of red clay and scrub brush.

Their honor did not only come from the quantity and unmatchable quality of the stock produced, but also in the achievements of the family who had been working the land for generations. Hades Thanatos Kindred Death Sr., known as “Death” to his friends, had boasted years of cattle roping championships in his youth. His son, more often called “Kid” than his actual, given name, grew up raising prize calves for 4H and barrel racing like the sport was ingrained in his very blood, which it might as well have been. They were opulent, but not without humility, though their numbers were nothing to sneeze at.

So, this came as no surprise to Kid when his father announced they’d be hiring more hands for the busy spring season and quickly encroaching calving season. They were a large ranch, after all, and even though their hired hands were more than competent, they could only do so much in a day.

“One thing I almost forgot to mention,” Death added, pausing to sip at his coffee, which was near as black as the swathes of hair he kept tied in a low tail at the nape of his neck, inky black still despite the pale gray that spotted his temples. Kid merely raised a brow, flipping through a stack of reports on the soon-to-be-mother cows he’d just received back from their vet upon request.

“They’re from a bit of an… interesting situation. You know the summer delinquency project Ms. Nygus mentioned when we were in town last week? They’ll be coming in from there.”

Kid’s angular brows had slowly approached his hairline as his father continued to speak, reports near forgotten in his fine boned hands. He was no stranger to troubled teens, as two of their trusted hands, Elizabeth and Patricia Thompson, had come from a similar situation and were now practically sisters to Kid in all but blood. He nodded slowly, already thinking of which rooms would need to be cleared in the ranch house to make room for their new arrivals.

“Of course. How old are they?”

“Twenty-three and twenty-two,” Death replied airily, hiding what could have only been a grin into his coffee mug.

Kid spluttered, “Father, that’s _my_ age.”

“And what a fine young man you are.”

“That’s not the point,” he muttered, face heating with the praise his father took every opportunity to lavish on him, doting as the man was. “I was under the impression they were teenage delinquents, not old enough to be in college courses.”

“And they’ll be here tomorrow morning!”

Kid spluttered again, standing in shock and raking a hand through dark hair, shot through with streaks of silvery-white. “That’s hardly enough time to clear the guest house-“

Death the elder waved away his concerns, taking the reports from his son’s shock loosened grip to flip through, himself. “I already had Ms. Nakatsukasa and Ms. Albarn clear them out in preparation. They were the last ones to live there, after all.”

Kid’s nose wrinkled at the thought of Maka, who was nearly his twin in age and had a temper twice as big as she was, cleaning the guest house she and Tsubaki had lived in prior to moving fully to the ranch house like some sort of maid.

“I’ll expect you to show them about the property when they arrive,” Death added, having drained his coffee and settling further into the high backed leather desk chair. Kid nodded mutely, brushing invisible dirt off the front of his sweatshirt- he’d been nearly ready to go to bed when his father called him in for a final meeting before nightfall- and fixing his father with a final look of grim acceptance.

“I suppose I can’t get out of it. Goodnight, father. Don’t stay up too late,” he bowed his head in dismissal and made for the door, socked feet silent on the polished wooden floorboards.

“‘Night, kiddo!”

His journey upstairs to his room was a slow one, casting a forlorn glance towards the kitchen where a secret stash of peppermint bark, saved from the holidays and intended only for stressful situations, was hidden, before ascending the stairs with a resigned sigh.

His father had never been one to not spring surprises at the last minute. The man had a playful streak a mile wide, even as laughter lines and crow’s feet creased deeper into the space around his mouth and eyes, dark eyes sparkling with a barely concealed mirth. It was half of what kept the spirits of the staff up as high as they were, even when calf after calf seemed to come down with some mysterious illness, or spring windstorms whipped hard enough at the windows to make them shudder and shake in their frames. Despite the macabre nature of its name, Death’s Wish Ranch was nothing but an oasis nestled off the beaten path of a bustling desert town, welcome to anyone who needed a place to stay for the night or a warm meal in their stomach.

That was how the Thompson sisters had fallen in, after all, looking for somewhere away from their neglectful parents and empty home to stay the night. They’d been in luck, as climbing into the hayloft of any other barn might’ve ended with one or both of them having taken shotgun shells as bloody souvenirs. As it had happened, they’d been found by Kid’s father, awake late and startled by the commotion.

Kid could still fondly recall the scream of terror Liz had shrieked loud enough to startle a twelve-year-old Kid from deep slumber at somewhere around one in the morning, thinking Death Sr.’s tall, broad frame had been a deadly apparition of some kind.

Now, they slept in rooms just down the hall from Kid’s own, Patty snoring loud enough Kid could hear it through the walls on particularly sleepless nights. Kid shook his head fondly, closing his bedroom door behind him and settling in beneath the plush covers of his own bed.

Morning came with the sweet, blossoming orange kiss of sunrise, as it always did, rooster crowing from across the yard like his life depended on it. Kid groaned, throwing his arms across his face, already dreading the upcoming events of the day. He could already hear movement shuffling across the hallway and down the stairs to the kitchen, the muffled murmur of familiar voices, pierced with an occasional laugh or giggle.

He dressed quickly, pearl snap button down and worn denim that had gone pale in the knees, the familiar motions of threading a dark leather belt and doing up the silver buckle closure stamped with his initials in delicate letters.

The kitchen was already bustling as he descended the stairs in socked feet, ranch hands moving smoothly around each other as breakfast was prepared, coffee was set to brew, plans for the day were gone over at the kitchen table. He inhaled deeply through his nose, the scent of dark roast coffee and fresh pancake batter greeting him like the tune of a song he knew by heart.

“G’mornin’, Kid,” Liz muttered into her coffee, scruffing up his hair as she walked by, much like an older sister might. He rolled his eyes in return, raking thin fingers through his hair in a vain attempt to put wily strands of black and silver back into place, slicking a hand over the determined cowlick at the very back of his head that popped up despite his best attempts to tame it.

“Morning, Liz. Your buttons are uneven, by the way.”

Liz glanced hurriedly down at her own pearl snaps, growling in irritation and throwing an aborted aggravated gesture in his direction when she found them to be completely even. “Jackass.”

“No swearing at the breakfast table,” Mifune-- foreman and easily the most trusted person of Death’s employ, right alongside his own son-- half-admonished. A toothpick hung from the corner of his mouth as he expertly flipped pancake after pancake onto a growing stack. “It’s a bad influence on Angela.”

“But they’re not at the breakfast table yet,” Patty challenged with a grin.

“It’s close enough. You gonna sit down and eat before these get cold or you gonna stand there all day, Kid?” Mifune carefully lowered the stack of flapjacks into the center of the breakfast table, snatching his hands back like he was going to be converged on by the rabid piranha swarm that was a handful of hungry twenty-something-year-olds if he wasn’t quick enough.

“I’m comin’, I was just thinking,” Kid slid into his chair, snatching a few pancakes onto his plate before the stack could completely disappear. Patty snorted.

“You? Thinkin’? Stop the presses, we got a news story.”

Kid glared at her over a forkful of pancake that was more syrup than pancake, threatening to fall apart on the tines of his fork. He hurriedly shoved it in his mouth, sure the chipmunk puff of his cheeks was simmering the heat of his glare. Patty only beamed brighter.

“I am your superior,” Kid glowered weakly into his plate, stabbing at another forkful of slowly dissolving breakfast.

“Superior assh-“ Patty began, but cut herself off with a quick look from Mifune. Granted, it wasn’t much of a change from his usual expression, perhaps a pale brow was cocked in waiting, but little six-year-old Angela sitting next to him and stabbing at her own pancakes likely doubled down on the admonishment from not but a minute ago.

“Anyhow,” Kid cleared his throat, taking a sip of orange juice. The sugar did little to help clear out the stickiness in his throat from the syrup, but if he didn’t have a sweet tooth a mile wide then he might as well not be his father’s son. “Was I the only one not informed of the arrival of two new hands for the summer, comin’ in this mornin’, at that?”

“Sir Death ain’t tell us till a few days ago when we was supposed to clean out the guest house,” Tsubaki supplied from the opposite end of the table. She had a steaming mug of tea in place of the bitter, tar-esque coffee most of the rest of the table sipped at. Angela had a glass of orange juice as well, in solidarity with Kid. He couldn’t say how he felt having similar tastes to a six-year-old, but he’d gotten over it soon after Mifune became their foreman, bringing his daughter with him.

“Who’s comin’?” Angela asked around a mouthful of pancake, face smeared with syrup and crumbs. Mifune wiped gently at her face with a damp napkin as he explained.

“A couple of folks who need a place to stay and some work over the summer are arriving soon.” The little girl perked up at the mention of having more people to show off the desert lizards she was oddly adept at catching to. Her habit had mixed reactions among visitors, to say the least.

“I best get out, then,” Kid stood, taking his empty plate and glass to the sink to rinse, washing his hands with the hottest water he could stand eight times over before moving to the door. He nabbed his hat off the stand, securing it low over amber eyes, and stomped on matching black snakeskin boots before stepping out onto the porch.

Death’s Wish was a big property, longer than it was wide and nestled neatly into the valley between two sheer cliff faces. It was the most opportune property for miles around, something prospective buyers had apparently realized as well, considering the amount of offers the Death family had been given for the property itself over the generations. A handful of horses milled about in the paddock attached to the opening of the much smaller horse barn, it’s sister cattle barn looming in the distance. Thousands of head of cattle waited inside to be released for the morning, having been tucked away to keep from freezing during the cool desert night. They’d be fed and released before too long, though their impatient lowing was near loud enough to hear from a distance.

Kid checked the lock on the back door eight times before stepping off the porch, loose swirls of red dust rising with each creak of the wooden stairs. The horses raised their heads, shapes highlighted with a creamsicle orange glow as egg yolk yellow sun dripped upwards across the sky. A dun gelding, just shy of fifteen hands tall, nickered at him in greeting, coming to meet his rider at the fence. The corner of Kid’s mouth raised in a gentle smile, rubbing at the quarter horse’s dark face.

“G’mornin’, Beelzebub. You sleep well?” he asked quietly. The horse, of course, could not reply, but twitched his ears forward in the direction of his voice, nosing at his wrist.

He left his horse to continue nibbling at the loose flakes of hay scattered about their paddock, heading in the direction of the barn and throwing the front doors open. Twin sets of pricked ears and shining, dark brown eyes glanced in his direction, locking onto his shadowed figure, just barely backlit with the orange glow of morning. Two blue heelers were nestled in an old horse blanket, curled into each other against the chill of the night, though they quickly rose to stretch and shake off their sleep as Kid made for the feed room. He poured a scoop of kibble into dinged up, scratched stainless steel bowls, exhaling amusedly through his nose as the dogs waited tensely for their release word.

“Okay, sup’ up.” The dogs dived into their breakfast with a starving fervor, acting like they hadn’t been fed in the past twelve or so hours. Their collars, red leather and blue respectively, identical except in color and tags reading “Orpheus” on one and “Eurisydes” on the other, jingled as they ate.

He left the dogs to their own devices, settling on the metal corral fence to wait, picking distractedly at the chipping red paint with a nail that had been chewed nearly down to the bed.

It was as the rest of the staff began filtering out of the house and heading in their seperate directions that a shiny black truck came bumping over the cattle guards, undoubtedly jostling its passengers inside. Kid perked up, confusion creasing his brow, but made for the truck as it began to park.

Sid Barrett, county sheriff and long time family friend, hopped out of the driver’s side door with a crunch of red rocks beneath his well worn boots. He tipped his hat in greeting towards Kid, already moving to lift what looked like duffel bags out of the truck bed.

“Mornin’, Kid.”

“Mornin’, sheriff. Didn’t expect to see you around here today,” Kid ventured tentatively, crossing flannel clad arms across his narrow chest. He’d have to roll the sleeves up to his elbows before too long. It was gonna be a hot day, just like any other in the desert.

“I’m droppin’ these two off as a favor to Nygus. She cain’t get away from the clinic, not at the moment.”

“Is she involved with the whole… project?”

Sid gave him a lopsided grin, hefting the bags over one shoulder. “You could say that.”

He turned suddenly, slapping the top of the truck cabin with his free hand, near shouting, “Alright, you freeloaders, get on out. We’re here.”

Kid did not consider himself an easily surprised man. He had lived too long, on too big of a ranch, with too many people who made it their prerogative to shock him, make him jump out of his skin with pranks and sly remarks, to be a person with a low threshold for surprises.

What did surprise him, however, was a short, stocky man sliding out of the passenger side of Sid’s truck, cotton-candy-blue dyed hair sticking up in errant spikes and golden brown skin like the sky over the mesa at evening, wearing pants far too white for any kind of desert town. He glared at the landscape around him, as if he was daring someone, something, anything to challenge him, brow stuck in an irritated scowl. Kid faintly recalled his father telling him not to frown so much lest his face get stuck that way as a child.

The man, who had yet to introduce himself and had, upon further inspection, the barest hint of dark-brown-almost-black roots closest to his scalp, was followed by a gaunt figure that Kid would have likened more to a skeleton than a person. They had strawberry blond hair so pale it was almost pink, cut in a shaggy, uneven mop, skeletal fingers clutching at the pocket of their heavy sweatshirt. Unlike their companion, they kept their face downcast, shying away from an investigative sniff from Orpheus at their too big, far too clunky to be useful boots with far too many buckles and straps.

“You brought me a couple’a _dudes_ and didn’t even outfit them properly for ranchin’?” Kid drawled, tearing his gaze away from the strangers to interrogate Sid, who shrugged apologetically. The blue haired man directed his glare at Kid, who didn’t acknowledge him.

“If it’s any consolation, they got a little spendin’ money of their own, so’s _you_ ain’t gotta buy their new gear.”

Kid rolled his eyes, knocking back the brim of his black Stetson with a knuckle. “Thank you, sheriff. I can handle this from here.”

With a final wish for good luck and a hasty goodbye, Sid clambered back into his truck, pulling out of Death’s Wish like he had much better places to be. Which, considering, he probably did.

“Welcome to Death’s Wish Ranch, I’m-“

“What’s up with your face?” the blue haired man interrupted, now holding his own duffel loosely in one fingerless gloved hand. Kid’s jaw tightened, chin lifted in irritation.

“It’s a skin condition called vitiligo, an’ I’ll thank you to not interrupt me anymore,” he challenged his glare with one of his own, lips pursed. “As I was saying, welcome to my family’s ranch. My name is Daividh Thanatos Kindred Death, but you can call me Kid, as everyone does.”

“I’m Black Star. Do you really have that many names?” the blue haired miscreant sneered, head cocked in challenge. Kid could already feel his jaw start to ache.

“It is. Do you have any more questions, or can we get started on the tour?”

Black Star- and he had the gall to poke fun at Kid’s given name- made a show of considering his options, finger to his chin and gaze pointed towards the sky. He grinned coyly, shaking his head, “No- _pe_.”

Kid was tired of this already.

“I’ll show y’all to the guest house, then, so you can put your stuff down,” Kid made a flippant gesture with his off hand to follow, already turning in the direction of the guest house not but a hundred feet from the main house. He glanced at the twig of a strawberry blond behind him; and Liz teased there couldn’t have been anyone smaller around than Kid. “My apologies, I didn’t even ask your name..?”

Their gaze darted from his face, to the ground, to the entrance of the ranch, as if they were considering making a break for it. Seeming to find that running would be futile in the oppressive desert heat, they shifted, muttering shyly under their breath. “C-crona.”

“You got a last name, Crona?”

They shook their head fervently, a panic beginning to fill their pale, wide eyes like a startled horse. Kid made a placating gesture, taking more intentional steps towards the guest house. “You don’t have to run off or anything, if you don’t wanna share details then that’s fine with me. All I ask is that y’all be cooperative, an’ hard workers.”

Crona nodded fervently, hefting their bag with a surprising strength, while Black Star just rolled his eyes and followed along with a smirk, much to Kid’s infinite chagrin.

The guest house was a small affair, a few hundred paces from the main ranch house, but something like a miniaturized version of it. Dark brick and a red stucco roof, just big enough to house two rooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom, backed up to the North pasture fence. Shoestring acacia and vitex trees crowded around the far corner of the guest house, roots twining into a thick carpet in a dip in the terrain, casting ample shade. Kid and his father had spent many long afternoons picnicking there when he was barely tall enough to come up to his father’s knee, taking full advantage of the lunch breaks he allowed himself, spring air thick and sweet like molasses.

“It’s two room,” Kid began, unlocking the door and shoving it open with a shoulder. The frame had shifted with the swell of a rare raging thunderstorm a few years ago and no one had gotten around to fixing it, so they settled for brute force. “One bathroom, an’ a kitchen. Y’all go put your things down quick, we got a tour to get on.”

They took a minute to set their things down while Kid leaned up against the porch rail, wincing at the red dirt they tracked onto the throw rug with shoes poorly fit for ranch life. Orpheus sniffed along the corral rails, electing the perfect one to mark on.

“Woah! You have dogs out here?” Black Star exclaimed, startling Kid out of his silent reverie. He rolled his eyes, securing his hat low over his face so the shadow would keep from betraying his annoyance. He had an image to upkeep, afterall.

“They’re workin’ cattle dogs, don’t bother them, if you can help it.”

Despite himself, it seemed, Black Star would cast furtive glances over his shoulder, around the bend, or in random corners while Kid took them on a tour of the ranch, hoping for another glimpse of the elusive blue heelers. He showed them around the cattle barn, which was blissfully empty for the day, through the western pasture, and around the horse barn. They ended their tour at the horse corral as the noon sun climbed high in the sky, nearly time for dinner.

Kid knocked the red dirt off his boots one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight times on the steps climbing up to the wraparound porch, toeing them off right inside the door to the mud room. Black Star and Crona glanced around him with a tentative curiosity, red dust caked onto their own shoes, even halfway up the ankles of Crona’s dark jeans, ground into the hems that trailed under their heels. Kid suspected Black Star’s bare legs were in a similar state, terra-cotta hue of the terrain hidden against the warm brown of his skin.

“Y’all hungry?” Kid asked, making a vague hand motion that meant they should follow suit and take off their shoes. “No bootprints or dirt on the floor in my house, if we can help it. It’s nearly dinnertime, go an’ wash up an’ come meet everyone. Bathroom’s just around the corner,” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder.

Maka stood at the kitchen counter, flanked by Tsubaki on her right at the stove. They wove around each other in a kind of hypnotic dance of familiarity, Maka chopping with the fury of a person who sorely hated the vegetables beneath their knife and Tsubaki deftly flipping the stir fry in her giant wok as they were added. His father sat at the head of the table, a newspaper unfolded in his bony, scarred hands like a broad paper shield, half-drunk sweet tea at his elbow, sweating pearls of condensation in the syrupy heat.

“Hey, kiddo!” Death Sr. chirped from behind his paper. “How’d the tour go?”

“Fine,” Kid grunted, sidling up alongside Maka to wash up at the sink. Water as hot as he could stand, near boiling, scrubbing all the way up to his elbows one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight times. He felt an unfamiliar gaze burn into his back. Bile clawed at this throat with the need to explain himself. He drowned it in sweet tea.

“I’m glad! I hope our new hands didn’t cause you any trouble,” he winked playfully over the top of his newspaper at the aforementioned newcomers, who idled awkwardly in the doorway. Crona seemed as though they’d rather retreat into the recesses of their hoodie, which Kid had yet to figure out how they hadn’t burned to death in. He shrugged the thought away, setting the table for ten.

“We need some extra chairs?” Maka asked, rinsing down her cutting board as Tsubaki continued to stir and flip. “I’ll go get some.”

As Tsubaki finished off the stir fry with a hearty glaze of olive oil, spooning it out of the still steaming wok and into much more manageable wooden bowls, Kid called in the rest of the ranch from the radio he wore at his hip. Everyone who worked at Death’s Wish had their own, branded with a white label bearing their name in Death Sr.’s neat, looping handwriting.

Black Star had already sat down at the empty head of the table, closest to the kitchen doorway, Crona clinging to the wood like a lifeline as cowboys began filtering in and settling into their usual spots. Mifune raised a silently amused eyebrow in Black Star’s direction, flipping his gaze to Kid as he pulled out Angela’s chair for her and pushed it back in with a foot on the lower rungs. Kid gave a faint shrug, setting down a stack of napkins between the steaming bowls.

Angela, being all of six and having all the tact that came with it, instantly rounded on Black Star with her little hands pressed to the tabletop, looking as if she might vibrate out of her skin with curiosity.

“Who’re you?” she chirruped, big brown eyes wider than riverbed stones. Mifune hummed underneath his breath, tapping her elbow. With visible reluctance, she sat back down, staring at Black Star still around Mifune’s hands as he affixed a napkin to the collar of her shirt.

“I’m Black Star, the best guy you’ll ever meet,” Black Star preened.

Angela’s cherubic features creased in a frown, glancing between Kid across from her, Mifune at her left, and back to Black Star again. “Nuh-uh,” she declared with the kind of assuredness only a child could have, “my daddy is the greatest guy you’ll ever meet.”

Mifune spluttered, nearly spraying sweet tea across Crona’s front where they sat across from him. Crona recoiled in preemptive shock while Mifune gently chided Angela, though the flush across his face was apparent. The man never took a compliment well, nor had the novelty of Angela referring to him as her Daddy quite worn off. Kid hid a slight slip of a smile behind his own glass, gaze flickering between Black Star and Crona and back again. It was always interesting to see how newcomers took the news of the varied relations among the ranch, as undefined and messy as they were.

Angela and Mifune surely didn’t look alike, that was for certain.

“Alright, enough talk. Start eating before it gets cold, everyone! Tsubaki and Maka were so kind to make us such a hearty meal this afternoon,” Death Sr. chirped once everyone had settled into their places around the table. There was little talk as bowls were passed around, portions were ladeled out, and utensils began scraping against plates. Kid took to carefully separating the chicken, bell peppers, and onions on his plate in neat piles, a lump of steaming white rice forming a fourth and final corner, before tucking in. Unfamiliar eyes burned into him as he did so. He resisted the urge to smack away the heat like one might a particularly annoying mosquito.

“So, Maka,” Liz drawled, elbows spread gracelessly on the table. Kid rolled his eyes internally. She never had gotten over the habit of protecting her food like someone was going to snatch it away from her at any moment. “How goes it with your yuppie-boy?”

Maka immediately colored a bright pink, much to her own chagrin. She tugged fruitlessly at one of her own ashe-blond ponytails, Tsubaki fixing her with a small, knowing smile from her right

“He ain’t _my_ yuppie-boy, he’s just a friend’a mine who happens to be a boy. I don’t get on you for flirtin’ with all the _dudes_ in town, so lay off it,” Maka huffed beneath her breath. Death Sr. chuckled lightly, patting her elbow with a condoling smile.

“Now, Maka, there’s no shame in having relations with people off of the ranch, as long as everyone involved is a consenting, healthy-“

“Would you _quit?_ ” Maka yelped. A round of snickers rose around the table, though a quick glance at their newest hands showed that Crona and Black Star were merely looking on in shocked bemusement- though Crona looked more bemused than shocked, and the inverse was true for Black Star. Kid cleared his throat, piping up in a vain attempt to keep Liz from teasing their resident MMA trained hand. It was a wonder Liz hadn’t been judo flipped over Maka’s shoulder yet, or whatever the hell it was she did. All Kid really knew about it was that it had given Ox Ford enough bloody noses during their high school days he kept a wide perimeter around Kid and his de facto bodyguard.

“I need to take our new hands into town to pick up some proper ranchin’ clothes- Wranglers, boots, y’know. Any’a y’all wanna come with?”

“I will!” Maka chirped, looking ready to jump out of her seat at the chance to get away from the teasing that followed her around the ranch.

Supper continued without further incident, though Liz was left to grumblingly clean up afterwards as penance for wheedling Maka yet again.

“My truck or yours?” Kid asked by way of greeting, stomping into his boots yet again on the porch as Maka did the same. Crona trailed just behind them like a lost ghost, hands tucked deep in the pocket of their hoodie, while Black Star poked at the line of trucks parked up at the front of the house. Kid’s left leg ached from hip to knee, peeling all the way through the muscle and clean down to the bone. He grimaced to himself. All the walking they’d been doing today did little but upset the old ache, and they were about to do some more.

“Yours is bigger, it’ll fit four people better- but I always knew you were overcompensatin’ for somethin’,” Maka shot back with a grin, even as she gave him a concerned glance from the corner of her eye.

Kid simply rolled his eyes and removed his key ring from the carabiner clip hooked into his belt loop, jangling with far more than just his car keys and keys to the house. He, like Mifune, kept a copy of every key for the pasture gate padlocks, the horse and cattle barns, the guest house, and the equipment sheds, just in case. His father had a similar ring attached to his belt at all times, except his also carried a key to the gun cabinet in his study; an honor he had yet to bestow upon Kid, even as much as he’d let his son handle the rifles and pistols locked carefully away.

“Yeah, yeah. Just get in, will ya’? And hands off my radio-“ he sniped, slapping her hands away as they immediately went to fiddle with the dials and knobs. He glanced up in the rear view mirror, back at the other two passengers. “Y’all comfortable back there? Sid said y’got some spendin’ cash on you. If you cain’t afford all of what you need, I’ll just take it out of your salary till it makes up for it.”

Crona whispered what might’ve been an affirmative, while Black Star simply rolled his eyes and looked out the window. His silence was short lived, however, grimacing at more than just the cattle guards they bumped over upon leaving the ranch proper.

“The hell is this music?”

Kid cleared his throat, pinking. “Math rock.”

“ _Wow_. You’re an even bigger nerd than I thought you were, cowboy.”

“Math rock is called that ‘cause it plays in incredibly complex rhythms and time signatures! It ain’t got nothin’ to do with-“

“Boys, you’re both pretty, alright?” Maka seized that moment to change to the radio over the CD Kid had so carefully burned himself with all his favorite math rock tracks, cranking the station knob till the dulcet tones of Orville Peck crooned through the speaker.

Unnervingly, Black Star knew every word, which he displayed by shouting at top volume. Kid’s ears were ringing by the time they made it into town, pulling up in front of the old tack store practically everyone in the small town got their leather goods from, from saddles to boots.

The truck shuddered to a stop as he cranked the ignition off, shooing his passengers out of the truck. His leg gave a painful throb as they ascended the creaky wooden steps to the tack store porch and he barely stifled a grimace, inhaling thickly. Maka shot another concerned glance over her shoulder and he waved her off.

Kid did grimace, however, at the sight of the blond man barely clearing himself in height who was posted up at the counter, elbows braced on the wood as he kept a polite distance from the strawberry blonde manning the register who looked as though she’d rather be anywhere else.

“Y’all get on, find what you like. If they don’t have it in your size I’m sure Kim can find somethin’,” Kid waved the new hires off into the store, Maka gently taking Crona by the elbow and leading them to a rack of subtly embellished steel-toes when a panicked expression began to fall over their face.

“Oh!” the man turned to face Kid, a sunny smile already emblazoned across his face, cheeks far too cherubic for Kid’s liking. He swallowed a scowl and smiled lightly in return. Kim breathed a sigh of relief, mouthing her thanks over the customer’s shoulder and retreating further into the store under the guise of offering help to the new patrons. Kid silently cursed her, though he couldn’t blame her, either. The man made him wanna get the hell out of dodge whenever he saw him, too.

It looked as though Kid wasn’t going to be so lucky this time.

“Pastor Law, nice to see you,” Kid offered neutrally, voice level. Pastor Justin Law, barely old enough to have the title, was the pastor of the baptist church in town, and eternal thorn in Kid’s side. He suspected the man had something of an unrequited love for his father, but such assumptions of a man of the cloth were below him.

“Mister Death, so nice t’see you out in town! I always think I’ll never see the day.” He grinned like he’d made a particularly amusing joke.

“Please, it’s fine t’call me Kid, everyone does. ‘Mister Death’ makes me sound like my father. I ain’t that old yet.”

“Could’ve fooled me,” Pastor Law motioned to his own left temple in recognition of the white that streaked through Kid’s obsidian black hair, blackened bonfire logs burnt through ivory with ash.

“Well, we’ve always been similar in that, taking positions befitting someone much older than us. Wouldn’t y’say, Pastor?”

To his credit, Pastor Law’s smile tightened, straightening the lapels of his suit jacket with a gruff rumble in the back of his throat. “I won’t keep you none, got business to attend to. Hope I’ll see you in church sometime s-“

“Hey cowboy, whossat?” Black Star appeared at Kid’s elbow like the world’s most obnoxious interruption made flesh, holding a of creamy calfskin leather boot in each hand, color reminiscent of the warm dun of Beelzebub’s hide. Kid groaned internally. Of course the fates would have it that he’d be the one to introduce the newest annoyance in his life to the furthest long-standing thorn in his hide. Next he’d be finding briars in his boots.

“Black Star, this is Pastor Law. He’s head’a the baptist congregation around here. Pastor, this is my… our new ranch hand, Black Star. It’s his first day.” He made a vague motion for them to introduce each other. Black Star gave the man a hesitant handshake, squinting in barely concealed distrust, though Pastor Law seemed to pay his reservations little mind.

“Got a grip on ya’, son!” Law chuckled, smacking Black Star companionably on the shoulder. Black Star grunted.

“Could say the same to you.”

“Thank you for your time, Pastor, but we got business to attend to. Chorin’, and all,” Kid plastered a pleasant grin across his face, hoping it didn’t look nearly as strained as it felt, and ushered Black Star past the pastor with a hand gripping just a shade too tight into the taut muscle of his shoulder. Black Star turned a glare in his direction, jerking his shoulder out of Kid’s iron grip. “Maka? Y’all almost done, back there?”

Maka appeared around the corner with Crona in tow, who held a pair of steely blue-grey suede boots like their life depended on it, eyes darting anywhere but at Kid.

He had the strangest feeling the poor sap was intimidated by him; but they seemed to be getting on fine with Maka, at the very least, so they wouldn’t be totally alone, considering Black Star had barely spared them a glance since they arrived on the ranch in Sid’s truck that morning.

Kid wondered what their stories were, though he wasn’t exactly gearing up to ask. You didn’t ask questions of people at Death’s Wish, not about their past nor about their personal life, lest they invited you to. The only thing that mattered was if you were good with your hands and willing to change for the better.

Don’t ask, don’t tell, as it was.

Don’t start none, won’t be none.

It had an undeniable allure, something that drew strays with shaky, fog-obscured pasts like moths to flame, or perhaps flies to honey. That was how they’d earned some of their most dependable hands, from the Thompson sisters to Mifune and his little daughter.

Kid could still recall the day Mifune showed up on their doorstep, looking like he hadn’t had a proper sleep in weeks, toting a swaddled infant against his chest. Kid had been all of eighteen then, wide-eyed and surprised, holding open the front door despite the chill that threatened to creep in. His father invited Mifune in, all broad smiles and warm welcomes, and had set the man up with a hot plate of food before he could hardly blink.

Kid still didn’t properly know who Mifune had been before, or what he had been on the run from, seeking shelter and protection under the Deaths’ roof, whom none had dared yet cross. Mifune had proper looked like he expected to be kicked out at any moment, hardly letting his guard down at all for the first few months- though, it hadn’t hardly helped that the man spoke little English, still defaulting to his mother tongue of Japanese. Despite it all, he knew enough to be dangerous, as was evidenced by the time Kid opened his door to wake him for breakfast a week in and had a pistol pointed at him before any words had even left his mouth.

Eventually, like with all their strays, he slowly settled in, letting the safety of a warm hearth and consistent meals melt into his bones. Kid knew a dam had finally been broken, flooding the house with a reverent kind of trust, when he’d found Mifune asleep on a leather recliner with a barely-year-old Angela asleep on his chest.

He kept the picture of that moment for sentimental purposes only, of course.

It was a little like breaking a shy horse, or taming one that had seen far too many palms raised in anger and not enough in kindness, in gentleness, was the process of taming the strays they couldn’t seem to stop collecting.

Kid had a feeling both of these nuts would be harder to crack than most, somehow.

They paid for the boots, Kid covering what their new hands couldn’t, and ushered them back to the truck that waited outside. Maka assured them they’d get clothes properly suited to choring soon enough, seeming to sense the budding ache in Kid’s leg even as much as he tried to hide it. She was too perceptive for her own damn good, sometimes.

“Kid,” Maka stopped him with a gentle hand at his elbow as they filtered back into the ranch house, ushering the others on ahead without them. “You should hit the hay early tonight, alright? I’ll cover whats chores you missed.”

“You really don’t have to-” Maka fixed him with a look, one of the ones she tended to give before she landed a solid right hook. Kid grimaced. “Fine. Tell Father I retired early for me, please?”

“Of course. Now go get some rest- I left you some painkillers in the medicine cabinet.”

Kid nodded his thanks, cutting through the living room directly to the staircase. His left leg throbbed, a deep, fiery ache down to the bone, eating through his femur with a kind of venom he’d slowly become accustomed to over the past year-and-a-half. He nabbed the painkillers Maka had left for him out of the bathroom medicine cabinet, “KID” written in sharpie by Maka’s careful hand, alongside a cartoonish little skull. He huffed a laugh and knocked back three pills with a swig of Gatorade from the case of bottles he kept stored underneath his bed.

As he reclined into the mattress, groaning in relief, kneading into the flesh of his left thigh with tired knuckles, Kid had the distinct feeling that this upcoming calving season was going to be a far more complicated affair than those of years past.


	2. white as a cotton field and sharp as a knife

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> something burns, black star and crona learn to ride, and moonlit conversation is had

Kid awoke to the smell of burning.

His mind raced with the worst possible scenarios as he jolted out of bed, landing on a leg that was still sore and sliding across the bare wooden floorboards as he jerked his bedroom door open. A desert brush fire? One of the barns was going up in flames? The chimney had gotten clogged and now there was ash filling the living room?

He skittered down the steps, already planning how he was going to rouse the rest of the house and call the town fire department in the most expedient manner, only to slide to a stop upon reaching the kitchen doorway, shock making his jaw fall slack.

Black Star stood in the middle of the kitchen, already dressed in jeans he’d borrowed from Patty, who was his closest in size, holding a frying pan of smoking, charred remains of _something_ with an expression approaching mollification on his face. Crona turned like a startled animal at Kid’s appearance, brandishing a whisk dripping batter, while Liz made a valiant attempt to wave the smoke out of the open kitchen window lest they set off the fire alarm and wake the whole house.

So much for a brush fire, then.

“Hey, Kid!” Liz greeted through the collar of her shirt, pulled up over her nose and mouth. “I was just tryin’ to show Star and Crona how to make breakfast, y’know, to fit into the rotation.”

“I think that’s anything but breakfast.” Kid intoned flatly. Black Star’s blue-tinted brow crept closer and closer to his hairline, a grin cracking wide across his face as he took in Kid’s frazzled appearance with a once over that made Kid shiver.

He was suddenly very aware that he was wearing nothing but a sweatshirt, boxers, and fuzzy socks. He hadn’t even combed his hair.

“Little under dressed for the party, huh, cowboy?” Star returned with a teasing lilt in his voice. Crona, meanwhile, had flushed a pale pink all the way up to the tips of their ears, head ducked low between the rise of their sharp shoulders. Kid cleared his throat, feeling a hot flush steadily rise to his own face, patchwork pink and dark brown across his face through the pattern of his vitiligo. It had been likened, more than once, to the vague outline of a skull, with pale patches around his eyes, nose, and mouth in scraggly, jagged edged shapes.

Kid straightened his sweatshirt, shoulders pushed back to hopefully give him at least the barest facsimile of control over the situation-- or at least look like his pride wasn’t leaking out of him through his toes. Judging by Black Star’s snicker and Liz’s raised eyebrows, cheeks round with mirth, he wasn’t doing a very good job of it.

“Right. Well. I’ll leave you to it,” he gave Crona a nod, turning on his heel and marching stiffly back up the stairs.

“Nice undies!” Black Star called from the kitchen.

Kid suppressed the urge to fly back down the stairs and strangle him, lack of pants be damned.

He returned downstairs a half-hour later, having vigorously scrubbed at his scalp eight times over in the burn of steaming water streaming from the showerhead till his fingertips went numb and raw, dressed in pearl snaps and jeans. A black brace clung tightly to his left thigh, all the way down to the knee, where it circled around the joint, articulation clicking in time with his steps. When he went around the property, whether it was to check fence or help round up cattle, it was always on horseback, and thus walking, unaided, across the entire property had left his left leg more than a little sore. It pervaded all the way down to the bone, a kind of ache that would never go away no matter how hard he tried. He resisted the urge to dig his fingers into the wide, still healing scar that spanned the entirety of the outside of his thigh and claw out the ache from the inside.

He settled for pressing his thumb into the knotted line of scar tissue through the fabric of his jeans, sidling up along the kitchen doorway. Mifune had joined them, washing dishes with a practiced ease while Liz continued instructing the new hires. Patty, likely woken by the smell of food, no matter how burnt it was, reclined at the table with her legs stretched out in front of her. Kid kicked lightly at her ankle as he passed. She stuck her tongue out in return, a gesture which he gladly repeated.

“Mornin’, boss,” Mifune grunted, setting out a pan to dry. Kid pinked.

“I’ve told you, I’m not your boss, Mifune. I’m as much of a hand as the rest of y’all.” Kid sidled up next to Crona, who was frying omelettes with surprising expertise. Kid raised a brow in their direction, gladly raising a plate to take the offered omelette. He slid it across the table to Patty before taking one for himself.

“You’re still General Manager,” Liz pointed out, shutting the fridge with her hip with a bottle of orange juice in hand, pouring Kid a hearty glass. He nodded a silent thanks, cutting into egg stuffed with turkey bacon, cheese, green onion, and chives.

When Kid had suffered his… injury, he’d found himself with far too much time on his hands, as he was suddenly bedridden for months at a time while bones slowly fused back in place and skin knit together under the guiding hand of metal plates and heavy-duty stitches. As such, not wanting to be completely useless as the invalid he felt like, he offered to take the duties of General Manager his father had shouldered on top of his duties as ranch owner on himself. He spent much of his time that wasn’t sleeping or in a haze of drug-addled pain poring over the ranch’s numbers, and when he wasn’t poring over cattle reports, he was submerging himself in online schoolwork.

He’d finished school a year earlier than expected, even with his injuries, and took to improving his worldly knowledge as far as he could while still bed bound and with only a computer and whatever the other hands could fetch him from the local library in town. Now, though, that he was more or less healed and had taken back to his duties as horse wrangler, Kid and his father traded off who shouldered the bulk of General Managerial duties from day to day. With calving season coming up soon, Kid had found himself deeply entrenched in numbers yet again.

At least he was good at math.

“And Mifune is foreman, but you don’t respect him none,” Kid returned, greedily tucking in. “Crona, did you cook these?”

Crona stammered an affirmative, jumping when Liz clapped a hand to their bony shoulder. They wore no hoodie today, instead in pearl snaps with sleeves that barely reached their wrists, far too large in the chest and hips. While Patty’s jeans fit Black Star well enough, Tsubaki’s borrowed button-down draped over Crona like a tablecloth; barely long enough, but twice as wide as their lithe frame.

“They did! Surprised me, too! I was ‘xpectin’ havin’ to teach both them _and_ Star the basics of cookin’.” Liz praised, beaming. Crona looked as though they’d rather melt into the floor than continue to be the object of Liz’s praise. Liz spun on her heel, pointing an accusing finger at Kid and Patty. “Though I’d almost say Star’s better’n the both of _you_ , and he burnt those eggs clean through!”

Patty gave an affronted gasp, while Kid simply continued to sip at his orange juice, eyes averted. Mifune raised a brow, muttering under his breath from his position at the sink. “Couldn’t even tell those were eggs.”

“Hey!” Black Star squawked. Tsubaki, hair already in a high ponytail, slid around him and into the kitchen, gratefully accepting her own plate from Crona.

“At least _I_ mounted from the right side first time I rode a horse proper! Hard to ride a horse facin’ backwards, ain’t it, Sissy?” Patty challenged back, though there was no real heat behind it, her blue eyes glittering with a childish mirth. Liz flushed, stammering as she slowly turned red from collar to hairline. Tsubaki muffled a snort into her breakfast.

“Speaking of,” Kid cleared his throat, attempting to calm the raging storm of insults before it could get out of hand-- or worse, be directed at him. “I’m goin’ to have to start teachin’ the both of you how to ride, startin’ today. I don’t expect neither of you have prior riding experience?”

Kid smirked at the resulting silence, Black Star having crossed his arms defensively over his chest as he leant against the kitchen doorway, though it was mostly directed at Black Star. Maka slithered around him, still blearily putting her hair up into twin french braids on either side of her head and making directly for the coffee maker Mifune had already set to brew, diverting from her caffeine-seeking path just long enough to press a kiss to the top of Tsubaki’s head and mutter a, “Mornin’, ‘Baki,” into her girlfriend’s dark hair.

Breakfast continued without further incident, aside from Liz throwing her fork at Kid when he insinuated she may want to tag along to their riding lessons that morning. Crona, however, kept casting furtive glances in Maka and Tsubaki’s direction when they thought no one was looking. Kid doubted they thought ill of the two of them, but he’d talk to Crona about it later, nonetheless. It was moments like those that Kid was starkly reminded that their little ranch was a haven for people of all kinds, and that the world outside of the red fences and cattle guards wasn’t always so kind.

“Get your boots on, it’s time to meet the horses.”

Kid stood on the wooden wraparound porch, overlooking the dusty paddock where the horses milled about. In the time it had taken Black Star and Crona to finish their breakfast, wash up, and get their boots on, he’d already fed the dogs and horses and let them loose for the day. Orpheus trotted along the fenceline, pausing just long enough to sniff here and there. Eurydises, who had been reclining in the egg-yolk-yellow rays of sun that broke over the edges of the valley, rolled to her stomach when the back door creaked open and the new hands stepped out, one looking much more psyched up for their lessons that day than the other.

“We have ten horses on this property,” Kid began walking as he spoke, not checking if he was being followed-- but by the sound of boots hurriedly scrabbling against the dirt, he was. “Everyone has their own horse. Everyone takes _care_ of their own horse. Board and feed are included in the payroll for hired hands, but gear comes outta your own pocket.”

He paused at the rusty red corral gate, taking a moment to unlock the seven-digit padlock that kept the corral closed and prevented the horses from escaping. It had previously been a simple carabiner keeping the chain together, until Angela’s little devil of a Connemarra had learned how to open it.

“C’mon now, don’t be shy,” Kid motioned for the two of them to join him inside the paddock, unable to stop the grin spreading across his face at their twin startled expressions. “They won’t bite, I promise- ‘xcept for maybe Ragnarok. Steer clear of his mouth. And hooves. All of ‘im, basically.”

“Why keep him around if he’s so mean?” Black Star piped up, already scrubbing Yojimbo-- Mifune’s piebald Pinto, who frequently got his name shortened to Jimmy-- between the ears with bruised, scarred knuckles. Crona hung back, flinching when a horse so much as sniffed at them. Kid cleared his throat, burying his hands in Beelzebub’s mane to keep from picking at his own fingernails.

“He was my project horse-- was gonna be my project horse, that is. Till I got… injured, and had to take a coupla’ years to heal up.” Kid cleared his throat again. “Anyhow, this is my horse. His name is Beelzebub, an’ he’s a Quarter Horse. Good stock, too. I knew his momma, she could cut cows like no one’s business. He’s a pretty fine barrel racer. Won all my awards with him.”

“Looks like a full horse to me.” Crona muttered, barely loud enough to hear. Black Star snickered.

The corner of Kid’s mouth cocked up in a grin. “Alright, wiseass. If you’re comfortable enough to make jokes you’re comfortable ‘nough to meet the rest of the horses.”

What followed was what Kid would chalk up to being one of the worse riding lessons he’d ever had the displeasure of instructing.

He groomed and tacked up his father’s giant black Tennessee Walker, a seventeen-and-a-half-hand-high beast of a horse named Reaper. Despite his name, Reaper was one of the gentlest horses Kid had ever encountered, and had a habit of greeting people with an affectionate whuffle of his whiskery white mustache on their face and hands. His father had once been a champion cattle roper, but in his retirement thought it better to have a less fiery, more even tempered sort of horse for riding fence and perusing the property. Hence, his calf cutting horse was sent to live out the rest of her retirement with a family friend, her one and only offspring, Beelzebub, becoming Kid’s personal horse.

Kid had been young enough that he learned to ride on Reaper, and the gelding was steadily climbing up into his early twenties, though he wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down or losing his vivacious personality to the crochetiness of age. Henceforth, he was the only horse he trusted enough to teach little kids and complete _dudes_ how to ride on.

“C’mon,” Kid groaned, pulling off his hat just long enough to rake his hand frustratedly through his hair before replacing it. “Couldn’t you at least try to sit on the horse like y’wanna be there?” Black Star grunted indignantly, holding the reins with a white-knuckled grip and leaning forward over the horn like someone had just punched him in the stomach. Kid hesitated to bring out the tactics he used on their farrier Killik Lung’s kids when they got a riding lesson partly in exchange for Killik’s farrier services; he hesitated to use them with Killik’s twins in the first place. The last time he told Thunder to sit high and tall like she was a princess in a parade, she looked as though she wanted to kill him.

Kid had no idea five-year-olds could look so murderous.

“Why don’t you show us how to ride in the first place, cowboy? I’ve always been a visual learner,” Black Star shot back, jerking up into ramrod posture so quickly Reaper ground to a quick halt. “And why this fuckin’ mountain of a horse? I could barely get on him, and I’m the biggest guy around for miles!”

“Well,” Kid began counting off on his fingers, “Chameleon is way too small for either of you, Shujae doesn’t like anyone but Maka and he hardly likes Maka in the first place, Camellia is too hot-headed for new riders, Jimmy won’t hardly move unless me or Mifune is ridin’ him, an’ Liz and Patty don’t like people ridin’ their horses, so I don’t let other people ride their horses.”

“What about your horse?” Black Star challenged, which would have been a lot more intimidating had he not been stuck midway through dismount, foot caught in the stirrup as he desperately hung to the horn. Kid sighed, sliding down from his perch on the topmost fence rung and moving over to dislodge Black Star’s foot from the stirrup. “And those two, over there-- you said that one’s Ragnarok, but what about the white one?”

“I ain’t lettin’ you mess my horse up-- quit jerkin’ around so much, I’m tryin’ to help-- Excalibur is one of my other project horses. He’s too damn obnoxious, I can hardly stand him-- and you ask anyone around for miles, everyone says I get along better with horses than people.” Kid shrugged. “I won’t say they’re wrong, but I won’t confirm nothin’ either.”

“They’re probably right,” Black Star quipped. Kid shrugged again, though the slightest hint of a grin was playing across his lips.

“Alright, Crona-- where’s Crona?” Kid whipped around, already reaching for the radio on his hip when he spotted a familiar head of strawberry-blonde hair near the edge of the paddock, at an independent corral. Kid’s gut dropped to his shoes. “Crona, wait-!”

But it was too late. They had already reached out towards the behemoth of a horse, all roiling waves of muscle underneath slight black coat, a thin stripe down the direct center of his face, cutting it into two severe halves. He met Crona’s hand with his muzzle, and Kid cringed in anticipation of a resulting shout of pain, and blood, blood all over, flat white bricks of teeth cutting through that slender wrist--

But it didn’t happen.

Kid’s face slowly unwound, relaxing despite the adrenaline humming beneath his skin, despite Crona’s pale, long-fingered hand settled on the end of Ragnarok’s broad face. Ragnarok was a beast of a hose, almost as wide as he was tall, snorting menacingly down from his seventeen-hands of height. He had a penchant for letting out piercing, screaming whinnies when Kid so much as came near him with a saddle, and since Kid had been too preoccupied healing for the better part of two years, the prime time to break Ragnarok into a respectable, rideable horse had long since past. Ragnarok was six now, little more than a pasture ornament, but Kid didn’t have the heart to get rid of him.

Besides, it seemed like someone had connected with the beastly mutt of a horse at last.

“‘Sides,” Kid trailed off, slowly turning away from the scene unfolding in front of him. It felt like they deserved a little privacy for such an intimate moment. “I don’t like showin’ off for people none, not anymore.”

They abandoned the paddock for the rest of the day, Kid ushering Black Star and Crona through what had previously been his share of chores, but would now in part be theirs. They finished at the cattle barn at sundown, pushing feed for the lowing cows and unhooking the ones from the milking machines who still produced milk but were without a calf to feed it to. Beef cattle milk wasn’t nearly as high in quality or quantity as dairy milk, but they made more than enough to feed the ranch staff and have some leftover to sell. Patty in particular enjoyed when it was her turn to man their stall at the weekly farmer’s market.

Kid found himself at the edge of the paddock again, past dinner, the sun slowly creeping down past the edge of the valley, into the sharp spear of sky cut between the high canyon walls. The horses had already been fed their dinner and his chores were done for the evening, so he had no real reason to be out here. Orpheus and Eurisydes had already put themselves away for the night, even.

Yet he couldn’t help from drifting from the porch, past the main paddock and to the smaller corral tucked inside the corner closest to the ranch entrance. Ragnarok eyed him warily, huffing into the dirt, short, choppy tail _swsh, swsh_ ing against his glossy hide as he swatted flies.

“Yeah, yeah,” Kid muttered, hoisting himself up onto the uppermost rail. It echoed hollowly underneath the soles of his boots, melancholy notes ringing out while his feet swung, idle.

He complimented himself for not falling off the railing when Crona appeared suddenly, soundlessly next to him. They had shed the borrowed pearl snaps-- no one would be free enough to take the new hires into town for proper ranching clothing till next week at best-- and now wore the hoodie they’d arrived in. Proper enough for cold desert nights, Kid supposed, since they lived where it could be in the upper nineties in the afternoon and just below freezing an hour past sundown. Kid gave them a nod of greeting, never quite taking his eyes off Ragnarok as he shuffled around the paddock, nosing for any remnants of sweet feed in the dust.

“Y’know,” Kid said without turning, “I pulled him right outta his momma. First thing he did in this world was give me a shiner.”

Crona hid a snort behind an overlong sleeve, pinking, “He kicked you?”

“Kneed me,” Kid corrected, grinning. “One of his big ol’ knobbly newborn foal knees, right in my eye. Wouldn’t go away for weeks. People kept askin’ if I finally got unlucky with kickback and took the butt of a rifle to the face.”

Crona nodded slowly. Their pale hair was almost pink in the light, or lack thereof. They seemed like a pale specter in the moonlight, a fat crescent hanging heavily over the valley. Sometimes, Kid swore it was grinning.

“You mentioned, uh, that you got injured, earlier. How did… how did that happen?” they asked, so quiet Kid nearly didn’t pick it up. Ragnarok ambled over, nosing along the fenceline. He hazarded a nip at Kid’s knee, too light to mean anything, and moved to inspect Crona’s hands. Their giggle was soft, light, airy, but a little discordant, almost like the hum of a tune you didn’t quite know by heart. Kid cleared his throat. His leg throbbed.

“Riding incident. Barrel racing. I used to be the… best in the state, if’n you can believe it.” He dug his thumb into the knotted line of scar tissue, like the gnarled roots of an old, twisted, diseased tree. If he dug hard enough, maybe he could dig the disease out with his bare hands, remove the corrupted root at the source, and he’d be healthy again. Maybe he could make it so he didn’t wake gasping for air like a man drowned, sweating despite the cool desert night, tangled in his covers with the afterimage of a face he hadn’t seen in years behind his eyelids. Maybe he wouldn’t flinch at the sound of breaking wood, of snapping twigs, of anything that sounded like the sharp, hot crack of bone, if he could just dig deep enough.

“Y-your hand--” Crona whispered, tearing his hand away from where it dug into the muscle of his thigh with a surprising strength in their reedy grip. Kid exhaled, frame shuddering, clenching his fist closed, open, closed in Crona’s steadying grip. His leg _burned_. It burned along the scar, burned where he’d twisted his fingers into the knotted skin, burned along the line of the initial break, burnt like fire where they’d had to pick the bone shards out of his skin like so much shrapnel.

“Sorry-- thanks-- sorry.” Kid murmured. He flexed his hand again, crossing his arms and tucking his hands into his armpits for safekeeping.

Crona smiled wanly, “Bad memories?”

“Yeah… yeah. Real bad.”

“I understand,” Crona clambered up next to him, giggling at Ragnarok’s investigate sniff, nostrils flaring with each hot breath into their cupped hands. “I promise not to tell anyone.”

“You show me yours, I show you mine?” Kid grinned. Their returning grin was hesitant, like they hadn’t had much practice with it, moonlight bouncing off their big, dark eyes.

“Yeah.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! comments and concrit are always appreciated, and i'd love to answer any questions! i love talking about my headcanons, especially for this universe.


	3. i know you by the state of your hands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kid and Crona have a late night chat, the sheriff makes and appearance, and Kid relives a memory.

“He likes you a lot, y’know. Doesn’t even tolerate me like that.”

Crona looked up, surprised, even despite the fact that Ragnarok was whuffling softly into their hair and hadn’t made a move towards Kid that wasn’t accompanied by pinned ears and a thrashing tail. “Really?”

“Yeah. If I so much as bring a saddle out towards him, he starts screamin’. You should hear it. Sounds like someone’s beatin’ the Devil outta him, an’ he’s got a whole lotta Devil to beat out.” Kid risked a pat on the horse’s broad neck. Ragnarok paused just long enough to pin just ears back and flash the white of his eyes at Kid before continuing his nose-first inspection of Crona for anything resembling food.

Crona pressed their mouth into the hang of a too-long sleeve over their hand, stroking shaking fingers through Ragnarok’s close sheared forelock. Their eyes were big and dark where they barely met Kid’s, collecting moonlight like pools of deep water. Like tide pools on the beach at midnight from the year they took a vacation to California and Kid dipped his hands into every tide pool he could find, searching for crustaceans that pinched his water-pruney fingers. He’d been so much younger, then, baby-faced and soft, without a hitch in his step or a familiar thread of worry drawing his eyebrows together beneath the low brim of a black hat.

He’d catch his reflection in the tide pools, patchwork hands submerged to the wrist, ripples playing across the reflection of the moon just over his shoulder. Big and round and pearlescent, mottled gray over ivory, watching him, silently. Ivory like the white of his eyes as a hand closed over his shoulder, long fingers digging into his collarbone, closing a shade tighter when he opened his mouth to speak. Long fingers in dark gloves, the flash of off-yellow teeth over his shoulder where the moon had been, replacing the moon’s omniscient presence with a lecherous grin.

The moon grinned wide and hostile at him tonight.

A chill breeze raked wispy fingers through his hair, cold-sharp fingernails tracing patterns along his scalp, head bare and naked without his hat. He sighed, low and regretful, through his teeth, hissing into the night.

He wanted his hat. He wanted these damn memories to stop, to stop pervading his waking moments and walking through his dreams with that lecherous, all knowing grin. He wanted his bones to stop aching, a deep ache that started in his leg and climbed up through his body all the way to his sternum, cradling his very soul with the cruel grip of a scorned lover. He could almost feel hot breath on the back of his neck, fingers pressing into his shoulder hard enough to bruise, just below his collar where no one would see, holding him hostage in a wordless threat at those tidepools. A memory like a thousand other memories, collected over years and years, the threat of something worse should he tattle hanging over his head like the blade of a waiting guillotine and sewing his lips shut tight with the invisible thread of silence.

Kid pressed the knuckles of a clenched fist into that same spot on his shoulder where those red-purple bruises would show up, freshened before they even got the chance to fade, like putting pressure on a bleeding snakebite and hoping that would force the poison out.

“...M-Maka,” Crona spoke, startling Kid out of the swell of memories with a start. They slid that ocean deep gaze away, over him, towards the sheer cliff faces of the valley far away, taking a shuddering breath as though just saying her name had forced all the air out of their lungs. “Maka, and Tsu-... Tsubaki.”

“What about them?” Kid asked, though it was hardly a question as much as it was an attempt to lead them into what they were actually trying to say.

“They, uh.” they stopped, gripping at the worn elbows of their voluminous sleeves. “They’re… together?”

“Yeah. Y’got a problem with that?”

“N-n-no! Of course n-not!” Crona stammered, hasty in their backpedaling refusal. “No I just- just wondered, if that was even a-uh, allowed.”

Kid shrugged, leaning forward onto his elbows, braced on his knees. He owed his balance to countless hours spent in the same position, perched atop the topmost rail like a buzzard, watching the horses mill about and the other hands do their chores while he waited, healing, useless. “Their personal matters with one another is their business, long as it doesn’t affect their work, or the overall camaraderie of the ranch. Been together for almost a year now, if I remember correctly.”

They’d gotten together after many months of dancing around each other, much to the rest of the ranch’s infinite chagrin. Maka had been hired on under recommendation of her father, an old friend of Death’s, after Kid had suffered his accident and they suddenly found themselves short a hand. Tsubaki, who had been there not much longer than Maka, had shared the guest house with her instead of being moved into the ranch house proper, as Kid had temporarily been relocated into one of the downstairs bedrooms while he was still recuperating.

It didn’t take long to figure out all those flushed, shy glances were more than a bad case of sunburn.

But it had never hindered their work, and they got along as well-- better, even--- as any couple Kid had witnessed. They were like family to him now, as much his flesh and blood as his own father.

“Oh….” Crona trailed off, scuffing the toe of their boot in the dirt. “D-d’you know if, uh, if….”

They trailed off again, flushing up to the tips of their ears. Kid almost snorted at the familiarity of it, of the memories it recalled of he and Maka having similar conversations at his ailing bedside.

“Dunno, you’d have to ask them yourself.” He hazarded a wink in their direction. They flushed brighter, twining thin fingers through their shaggy, uneven hair. It was almost pink in the moonlight, in the glare off that leering grin.

“Okay.” Their voice was small, barely a whisper, barely loud enough to hear. Something crowed, deep and mournful, into the pitch dark of the night.

“I’ll see you in the morning. Don’t stay up too late, now.” Kid nodded, sliding off the rail. His boots hit the dirt with a crackling crunch, echoed with every beleaguered footstep he took towards the porch. The stairs squeaked as he went up, and the second stair from the top creaked uncertainly under his weight on his way to his bedroom.

When he looked out his window, Crona was still standing at the corral, gazing up at the moon. Kid pulled the curtains closed with the barest slip of a smile.

He met the sheriff for breakfast the following morning.

Sid Barrett slid into the other side of the vinyl booth with a grin, slapping his hat down on the peeling marbled linoleum of the table. He wasn’t a very tall man, more broad than anything, with a presence twice as big as he was despite it. He commanded respect, something Kid thought was likely owed to his stint in the military; though Sid was anything but the stiff, sharply dressed man in uniform Kid had seen pictures of on the Barretts’ mantle.

He carried an easy, lopsided smile with him, permanently stretched wide in grinning tenterhooks at the corners of his mouth from twin burn scars on either cheek. A misfire gone horribly wrong, if Kid remembered correctly, and the reason for his honorable discharge. But Sid was a man who thrived on responsibility, so the sheriff of their little town he had become, before Kid was even a twinkle in his father’s eye-- as the man himself liked to put it.

“Kid,” Sid’s voice was an amicable rumble deep in his broad barrel of a chest, dark eyes sparkling with the barest hint of mischief. “Never thought I’d see the day: you, in town, twice in the same week? Must be dreamin’.”

“Not in your dreams, nor my worst nightmares,” Kid replied flatly over the brim of his mug. They’d been out of orange juice, so he settled for coffee, more cream and sugar than actual coffee. It was still far too bitter. He covered the taste with a generous bite of cheesy hashbrowns, eggs over-medium, turkey bacon on the side.

Sid laughed, flagging down the lone waitress in the little diner to put in his own order. “Hey, Jackie! I’ll have a double order of pancakes, and a coffee to go with-- black, two sugars.”

Jackie Olivia Lantern-Dupre, one year Kid’s senior and aspiring welder, waitress in the little diner owned by her father in the mornings and at trade school for her craft at night. She slipped Sid a small but easy grin, all long, dark hair and darker eyes hidden behind a neat pair of frameless glasses.

“Hey, stranger,” she returned, giving Sid an affectionate pat on the shoulder before leaving them to their conversation. Kid swallowed another bitter sip of coffee, trying his best not to make a face like a baby who had sucked on a lemon slice for the first time.

“While I’m all for pleasantries, Sheriff, I have work to get back to soon,” Kid said between bites of his breakfast. He pushed aside the empty plates, thinking of the stalls he had yet to muck and the bales of hay he’d need to throw down from the loft, green stain left behind from strings of twine holding the bales together never quite seeming to wash out of the calloused skin of his palms. “I was hopin’ you could enlighten me some on the background of our newest hires. I still don’t know jack about ‘em, they aren’t too talkative.”

“Well.” he grimaced, thinking of Black Star and his ever-running mouth, “not about anything that matters, anyhow.”

Sid nodded into his coffee. “I understand. There’s a reason they’re none too forthcomin’ with their pasts, an’ it ain’t fair of me to reveal more than they’re comfortable with to someone who’s still pract’lly a stranger. Still,” he leaned forward on his elbows, looking for all the world like a teenager about to divulge some grave but trivial secret over a game of footsie.

“I told you ‘bout Nygus’ pet project, right? The troubled youth she takes under her wing from time to time?”

Kid nodded, slowly. He could sense where this was going. Instinctually, he leaned closer.

“They come from real rough home lives, Black Star an’ Crona. Crona, they… well, their mama was none too great a woman. She was right abusive, downright cruel.”

Kid nodded along, the puzzle pieces as to Crona’s constant shifty, nervous behavior and anxious demeanor falling into place with the of broken bone. “And Black Star?”

Sid exhaled, long and low, smoothing a hand over the meticulously managed locs braided tight to his head, just now starting to tinge grey at the temples. “He’s tricky, that one. His parents were downright corrupt, just this side of amoral, an’ the kid bounced around from foster home t’foster home from the time he was, oh, fifteen or so, just till the past few years. He’s been livin’ in the city with Nygus.”

Mira Nygus, Sid’s half-sister and local on-call veterinarian from everything from cows to kittens, lived in a small apartment a few miles shy of the little town Kid called home. The apartment put her closer to the clinic, even if it was farther from the town she and Sid had grown up in, and Sid crashed at her place often when he wasn’t on active duty as sheriff. This, however, was the first Kid had heard of any kind of foster children from the either of them, family friends they had been since before Kid was born.

Rumor had it Death, Sid, and Nygus had known each other ever since high school, since Death’s mother picked the both of them up and moved them from their home in Kanagawa, Japan, and back to the home his father had come from. Kid had never met his grandparents, had been born far too late for that, but there were pictures of them on the mantle and Death still kept his father’s rifle in a place of honor in his office gun cabinet.

“He’s a good kid,” Sid carried on, leaning back in the booth with the awkward squeak of shifting vinyl. “Just has a lotta anger issues. Crona, too. Thought that some time on the ranch, ‘round the animals, would teach ‘em both some patience and responsibility.”

Kid sipped demurely at his coffee. “If they break somethin’ of my belongings it’s comin’ outta your paycheck, Barrett.” he grumbled.

Sid laughed, loud and carefree, and Kid felt a smile worm its way onto his face even against his better judgement.

He was cleaning his saddle-- Beelzebub’s saddle, really-- when the flashback hit him like a tidal wave, cold whitewater breaking over him in a rush of buried memory clawing its way to the surface.

Hands, much larger than his, long fingers spindly and fine but far stronger than his own, gripping his smaller hand, grip threatening to break his fingers, turning purple at the tips. Eyes, cold and hard and cruel, crinkled at the corners in malicious mirth, lank hair falling in greasy waves around the edges of a scalpel smile. Piercing him, clawing into his sternum and nestling against his heart, delighting in the frightened jack-rabbit _thumpthumpthump_ like one might savor a particularly delicious meal. He smelled like leather polish and dust, like copper and nickel. Like blood, dried and spattered over the toes of his work boots, steel toes obscured beneath blood spatter so thick and old one might think it was mud, if not for the smell.

His own nose, bleeding, drip-drip-dripping onto the cement floor, dusty with hay. His lip, quivering, pleading. Nose and forehead stinging from where he’d smacked into the floor, trying to catch himself as he was tripped, as a boot stained with blood and mud and terror swept across his ankles and he was falling down, down to the cement floor below.

_“Can’t tell Daddy about this, now can we?”_

Voice like snake oil in his ears, in his veins, turning his face hot and boiling, boiling in his heart, in his veins.

He could feel himself sitting still, hand still mid-stroke over the leather, conditioner leaking from the sponge in the tight grip of his fist. He smelled leather conditioner and silver polish and blood, blood thick in his nostrils, staining down the front of his pearl snaps, his jeans.

Blood, so much blood, so much more than there should have been from a bloody nose, flooding, crashing around him in a crimson tidal wave, frothy peaks pink and foaming, foaming like a rabid dog-

“Hey!”

Kid was suddenly very aware of the warm, stout hand shaking his shoulder, of the hot breath against his cheek, of the spikes of raspberry blue just out of the corner of his eye. He whipped around, brandishing the sponge like a weapon, conditioner leaking between his fingers and across his knuckles in pitiful rivulets.

“Woah, back off, Top Gun,” Black Star said, hands up in mock surrender. One blue brow was cocked upwards, the wry twist of his mouth belying he had more teasing than actual questions. Kid huffed, setting the sponge aside in the open container of leather conditioner and wiping his hands with the stained towel over his knee.

“Whaddya want?” he groused, attempting at grouchy and aloof instead of freshly snapped back to the land of the living, heart still hammering so hard against his chest he swore Black Star would be able to see the outline of it through his shirt.

“I’ve been standing here for like, ten minutes, dude. No one could get ahold of you and you wouldn’t look up when I called your name. It was like you were in a trance or somethin’,” Black Star shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. He wore a muscle tee in lieu of a borrowed button-down today, sleeves undoubtedly cut off in an at-home hack job, red kissed in faint flirtatious lines over his shoulders and down the back of his neck. Kid grimaced, pulling the brim of his hat down lower in the vain hopes it would help conceal some of the dark bags beneath his eyes.

“I said, whaddya want? Or did y’just come out here to mock me?”

Black Star held his hands up again in a placating sort of way, casting a glance over his shoulder in the direction of the ranch house. “It’s lunchtime. No one could find you, so Tsubaki suggested I check the barn. Somethin’ about you coming here to brood.”

“I don’t brood,” Kid snapped back, definitely brooding. “I clean tack when I needa think.”

“I thought cowboys went on long lonesome rides to think?” Black Star challenged, mouth curled in an absolutely cheshire sort of grin.

Kid huffed, capping off the leather conditioner and heaving himself to a standing position, leg throbbing. “No, I go on rides when I wanna do anythin’ but think.”

He started for the house, not waiting to see if Black Star was following. “Though, I think you’d know a lot about not thinkin’.” Black Star’s indignant splutter made a cheshire grin of his own curl across his lips.

In the end, he had explained the bloody nose to his father as having gotten smacked in the face with a stirrup. The man had been none the wiser.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! apologies for the shorter chapter, but its chock full of exposition for it! things will be heating up very fast, very soon. as always, comments, concrit, and questions are always appreciated!


	4. he drove a series 10 cadillac and wore a cigar on his lip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> some calves are wrangled, black star makes an observation, and bad news is bore.

The kitchen was aflurry with activity before the sun had even finished turning the sky a sickly plum purple, tinged golden around the edges like a healing bruise, sharp scabs of the mesas and cliff faces in the distance cutting into the outline of the cloudless sky. People rubbed sleep from their eyes, buttoning up the final snaps on their shirt and tucking hair underneath wide-brimmed Stetson hats, stomping into dusty leather boots with practiced motions. Patty stood at the kitchen counter, scooping breakfast fillings into soft-shelled tacos as quickly as Liz could finish cooking them, soft, floury white tortillas already lined up in foil wrappers like a line of dutiful tin soldiers on the linoleum counter. 

Kid stifled a yawn into the back of his hand, tearing into a breakfast burrito as it was offered to him, still warm. Sleep gathered in the dark circles beneath his eyes, smudged in rings dark as any raccoon’s. The exhaustion of flashbacks followed by nightmares hung heavy in his bones, pervading the marrow like a disease, like lead weights holding him down from the very inside of his skeleton. At least today, no one would expect much talking from him, as busy as they were about to be. 

The calves were to be separated from their mothers, branded, and the bull calves castrated before they were funneled into their own pens, all the while lowing and screaming for their mothers. They were pushing the weaning date already, but a few handfuls of screaming calves was far easier to bear than the damage they could inflict on their mothers’ udders, or the injury the calves themselves could come to should a cow find her patience being tested. 

Kid stalked off in the direction of the barn without a further word to anyone, Tsubaki’s concerned glance following his back. She sighed, already well aware of how little anyone of them would be able to get through to him, and turned to the newest hires with a grin, key ring spinning around her finger. She remembered her first turn at this day, her amazement at the flurry of activity as the cowboys moved faster than they had any right to. They had always been depicted with ambling, bow legged gates on the Westerns she grew up watching, anyhow. 

“C’mon, come in the truck with me!” she said at Crona and Black Star’s confused glances. “You don’t wanna miss this.” 

Crona rode up front on the other end of the bench seat with her, first aid kit heavy on the seat between them while Black Star held down the fort in the bed. Liz normally took the spot across from Tsubaki while the rest of the hands took care of the wrangling and branding process, Patty whooping and hollering in the back, but the number of calves this year was higher than the last, so they’d been recruited to help. 

Tsubaki slowed to a crawl, following along behind the small band of horses and their riders, waiting for Patty to clamber down and open the gate for her before rolling through, still at a glacial pace. The pastures had been set up so that a two gates slowly funnelled off in the direction of where the calves would be living, just wide enough that one would be able to squeeze through after being separated from its mother, and into another pen with a branding rod, dip tank, and the heavy rubber band that would soon deprive the male calves of their equipment, in the waiting hands of the Thompson sisters. 

For all she was scared of ghosts and ghouls and the general creepy-crawly that went bump in the night, Tsubaki thought it was rather admirable of Liz to stick her hands were no reasonable human would want to put them on a young bull, all with a stony expression and surgical precision. 

“You can get up in the back with Black Star, if y’wanna,” Tsubaki said, cutting off the purr of her truck’s engine with a turn of the key. “It’s a way better view back there anyhow. Thought you might wanna see our resident horse wrangler at work, n’all.” 

“Horse wrangler?” Crona asked, trepidation clear in their voice, worrying at the end of too-big sleeves with thin fingers. There were several small holes along the worn elastic from that very habit, Tsubaki observed out of the corner of her eye. She rested an arm across the back of the bench seat, careful to stay out of their personal space, and shrugged easily. 

“He doesn’t seem much like it now, but Kid used to compete in this very thing-- calf roping, barrel racing, that kinda thing. He was actually state champion junior barrel racer, for a while-- watch!” Tsubaki pointed in Kid’s direction, who was smoothly cutting off a stray calf from the rest of the herd. Beelzebub kept up a slow lope, barely more than a jog, jilting from side to side just so when the calf seemed as though it was trying to make a break for it. With barely more than a flick of the wrist, Kid’s rope went flying, catching the calf around a back ankle. It squealed, tugged along by Kid to the funnel and into the smaller pen. 

Kid tipped his hat in Liz and Patty’s direction, jogging Beelzebub back towards the herd. Maka went after her own calf, while he and Mifune kept a careful perimeter around the cows as they slowly milled about. 

Crona watched, rapt, their soft voice warbling in Tsubaki’s direction after a few long moments of silence. “What… what happened? Why did he stop competing?” 

“Ah,” Tsubaki adjusted her ball cap, gaze low. “That’s not for me to explain. You’d have to ask him yourself.” 

“R-right.” 

Crona seemed content to continue to watch, hand idly fiddling with the heavy black handle of the first aid kit-- it was a bait and tackle box, really, stuffed full with first aid supplies for both humans and horses-- so Tsubaki rolled her gaze upwards towards the rearview mirror. 

Black Star was crouched in a squat, one elbow braced on the truck’s roof while he watched the cowboys work, something in his expression unusually serious. Perhaps it was the hard set of his mouth, working at his thumbnail distractedly in one corner, or the way his brows were drawn down in something uncharacteristically concerned. But perhaps it was the way his eyes, bright cyan like the peaks of ocean waves from underneath the water, backlit by the sun, never seemed to move away from Kid even when he wasn’t roping calves. Tsubaki grinned, tucking that bit of information away for later. 

“Somethin’ wrong, boss?” Mifune asked, soft voice just loud enough to reach Kid’s ears through the pervasive gloom of his reverie. He snapped to attention, hot glare already turned in the older man’s direction, only to find him fiddling with that ever-present toothpick in the corner of a teasing grin. Kid sighed, fight deflating out of him, shoulders curling in once more. Mifune never addressed him like that, knew Kid detested when the others referred to him like that, least of all from people he considered his superiors. Had done so just to get a rise out of Kid, knowing that if nothing else would wipe the sour expression off his face, then that would. 

Damn tricksy foreman. 

“Whaddya want.” Kid grunted, though it wasn’t a question. Mifune’s expression fell into something more placid, less teasing, flaxen brows drawing together in the center of his forehead. They were so light Kid struggled to pick them out against his skin, sometimes. He’d refused to believe it was the man’s natural color until he’d exhausted any evidence on the contrary. 

“Somethin’s on your mind.” Mifune said, and it wasn’t a question either. Kid’s chest rose and fell with a shuddering sigh. His chest felt tight in a way that was unfamiliar, not because of the elastic around his ribs or the divots of scar tissue along his spine, but something unwholly uncanny, like he was being watched. Like the ache he felt in his bones when a storm was on the horizon, or the way the horses skittered about in their corral when they knew bad news was soon to grace the property. Something he hadn’t felt in nigh on two years now, something he’d give almost anything to never feel again. 

Kid wanted to snap back at the foreman, but couldn’t find the fight in him to do it. The heat had drained spectacularly out of him, like someone had planted a spigot in his stomach and turned it open, fire spewing out in hot licks of shame. He removed his hat long enough to rake fingers that shook only slightly through his hair, free hand gripping the saddle horn hard enough his knuckles turned white. 

He let himself stay silent long enough for Mifune to cut another calf and deliver it to the Thompson sisters’ waiting hands, where Patty gripped her branding rod with a little bit too much glee and Liz continued her de-testicle-ing job with an altogether opposite expression. 

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a lotta things to think about as of late,” Kid murmured, again just loud enough for the other man to hear. Mifune nodded sagely, though he didn’t press him to continue. He’d always liked it about him, how his presence, quiet but unimposing, never asked anything more of people than they were willing to give. He’d been with them since Kid was a measly rat of eighteen, far longer than any hand other than the Thompsons and Kid, himself. 

Well, Kid’s subconscious piped up from somewhere cold and dark and sterile, and there was also-- 

No one. There was no one else. 

Kid roped another calf, returning to their stilted conversation with a grim expression. “Somethin’ bad’s aboutta happen, I can feel it.” 

Mifune hummed. His expression was as unreadable as always. The only times Kid had seen him break that placid exterior were in anger, and that was a rare, alien emotion on their calm, collected foreman. Like a cheap suit that didn’t quite fit, bunching up in all the wrong places and too big everywhere else. 

Kid could still recall the last time he’d seen the man’s face twisted in hot, virulent rage, pale skin slowly turning purple with the force of it, gripping the sidebars of Kid’s hospital bed so hard he had been surprised the metal didn’t crumple beneath his hands. He’d always put two and two together faster than most people gave him credit for, Mifune did, and learned things about Kid that he had tried in vain to keep a secret. Kid felt a sort of respect one might have for a mentor figure for Mifune, though it had been him teaching the older man through English workbooks during that first year or so at the kitchen table, instead of the other way around. 

“Any idea what it is?” Mifune piped up after a long beat of silence, head turned to watch Maka cut off another calf with precision that was quickly approaching expert. Shujae tossed his head victoriously, dark mane rippling along his neck, like he could sense the unspoken praise. Maka patted his gleaming neck, grinning. They were a damn good pair, the two of them. Shujae had been a gift from Maka’s father, and though she hadn’t wanted anything to do with the colt at first, they’d slowly grown close despite it. Shujae was a stubborn thing of a Morgan, but if anyone was more stubborn than him, it was Maka. Kid snorted internally at the thought before addressing the foreman again. 

“No idea, but it’s definitely big.” 

Black Star crouched in the hot metal bed of the truck, elbow braced against the corner of the roof despite the way the white metal practically steamed in the heat. There was a reason these folks got up early, he supposed, if only to beat the damned Nevada heat before it started boiling them in their clothes. He was starting to regret not wearing the long-sleeved button downs they’d so graciously picked up in just barely his size, if only because of the sunburn beginning to grace his arms. But he’d be damned if he was gonna spend any longer in their hick clothes than he had to. 

Coming to this damn place hadn’t even been his idea in the first place, and he was definitely going to make Sid pay for the idea as soon as he was no longer living in that shack they called a guest house. There was red dust in his shoes, for crying out loud. 

Even if it had been the exact opposite of his idea, there was something that captivated Black Star about the place. 

Or, if he was being more honest, someone. 

He sat tall atop a stocky, squat horse with hide the color of butterscotch candies, blackened towards his legs and face like the sugar pooling in the edges of the pan had been allowed to burn. Kid was reedy, not much taller than him and definitely less imposing, almost goofy with the seriousness with which always graced his expression, mouth tight and eyes tired in the jigsaw pattern that was his face. 

Black Star was still only half convinced he didn’t draw it on every morning. No one’s skin just looked like a Dia de los Muertos skull naturally, even if it was wobbly around the edges like a wayward toddler had been allowed to go ham filling in the area of his face, except the only colors they’d been given were a warm, dusky brown and pale-just-this-side-of-peach. 

The guy was an enigma, was Black Star’s point, and despite his best intentions he’d been trying in vain to find out more about the guy ever since he got dumped on the lot. There were just too many unanswered questions percolating in the back of Black Star’s mind. Why did he walk with a limp, what mysterious injury had ended his career, why was he so serious, why did everyone look at him with such sugary, concerned pity in their eyes when his back was turned that it almost made Black Star sick to witness. 

Then there had been that day he found him, unreacting, in the horse barn, staring into the distance while one of his hands squeezed a sponge so tight it threatened to stop existing and the other was curled into a fist so tight his nails bit into the calloused planes of his palm. He’d had an expression on his face like he’d seen a ghost, all the blood drained from his face, hat casting a shadow almost as broad as the ghostly pallor of what could have only been bad memories. He’d almost hit him when he came to, finally, and, okay, Black Star could understand that. 

Sometimes his old man, his foster father, his Sid, would get caught in a tidal wave of memories so big and heavy it looked as though it would crush all the air out of his lungs and leave him as broken and bloody as he had been when his gun exploded in his face. It was the littlest things that set him off; sometimes a distant shout, or gunfire on the television, or the smell of sulfur, or even a fork scraping over a porcelain plate as they ate dinner. 

Sid had never tried to throw hands at him, the few times Black Star had been home alone with him with no Nygus in sight and he was the only one who could shake him out of his reverie, but Sid also had the instincts of a soldier, and was more likely to throw himself to the floor under a remembered hail of gunfire than try to take out his foster-son, even under the haze of traumatic recollection. 

Black Star could only wonder what was so big and heavy and painful that Kid’s mind wouldn’t let it go, weighing it down over his shoulders until he was forced to crouch and wheeze under the weight like Atlas. But Kid wasn’t that much older than him, if his same age, if younger, so what could have happened to him in all that time? Black Star knew first hand people could be cruel, that you could get swept up in the wrong crowd faster than you could blink, but it seemed like the guy’s life was perfect. Barrel-racing prodigy, online-scholar, tasked with the management of the ranch’s finances when Black Star could barely be trusted with a feed bucket. 

Besides, no one on this damn ranch told him anything anyway. 

He’d have to go directly to the source if he wanted any information, it seemed. 

“Hey!” Tsubaki slapped the roof of the truck, long arm stuck out the open window, grinning at him in the rearview mirror. “We’re goin’ back now! Don’t fall out the bed!” 

Black Star grinned back. He liked Tsubaki, liked her soft smile and long hair and dark eyes, liked the way she spoke more Japanese than his second-grade katakana. He trusted her, if one could consider a bond forged over cow shit and cooking lessons trustworthy. Maybe she’d tell him something. He just had to get a moment alone with her. 

Kid led the troupe back to the main yard, untacking and setting Beelzebub loose to wander the hay-scattered paddock far before the others. He spent far more time than they did around the horses and had grown up around them his entire life, so it was only natural. Maka was still jealous of the fact that he could tack up in under a minute, though, from the one time they’d timed it as bored teenagers. 

Only Tsubaki and her truck had beat him to the house, and with her Black Star and Crona. Tsubaki hauled the cooler full of Rocky Mountain oysters up the front steps and towards the kitchen, pausing when Black Star leaned over (she was shorter than him at the moment, bent as she was over the cooler) to whisper something in her ear. Her expression turned puzzled, then bright, then puzzled again. Something unfamiliar writhed in Kid’s stomach, claws curling into the lining, beginning to make a nest. He pushed it down for now, slipping deftly around them and towards the bathroom. 

He had just finished washing his hands eight times over and picking out the dirt beneath his nails with the back end of the nail clippers when he heard soft voices coming from the direction of his father’s office, one familiar and the other a well-known stranger. 

Kid padded up to the doorway, silent in his socked feet, curiosity prodding him further than what was likely polite. If his father was having a meeting then there was no reason for Kid to intrude, especially as dirty as he was from a morning of cutting calves and getting slobbered over in gratitude by Beelzebub. 

“-I’m not tryin’ to undermine your decision,” one voice was saying, the one that he knew but couldn’t quite place, “but I am sayin’ it’ll be all that much harder if you decide to write Kid as your successor.” 

“I’m well aware, Spirit,” his father’s voice cut in, tone that of which he used when he was tired and putting off facing the music. Kid could practically hear him rub at his temples, disturbing the meticulously groomed streaks of white adorning them and setting the baby hairs in little salt-and-pepper whorls. 

Kid’s stomach bottomed out. He half expected it to hit the wood floors with a splat loud enough to alert the two men. If his father’s lawyer was here, that could only mean something legal was going down, and Kid knew it couldn’t be good. 

“I just think it’ll be that much better handled in Kid’s- Kiddo?” his father’s voice cut off. Kid cringed, slowly slipping further into view of the doorway with a sheepish grin. “What’re you doing lurking out there?” 

Kid shrugged, gaze averted. “We just got finished with the weanlings. Everything went fine.” 

“Good, good! Why don’t you come in here and have a seat. I hope your leg isn’t bothering you?” Death motioned him into the office, making a gesture for Kid to shut the door behind him as he entered. He did, settling into the only other available chair with what he hoped didn’t translate as a grimace. 

“‘S fine,” he said, even as the joints in his leg audibly popped when he straightened it out in front of him. Spirit winced, bringing what looked like a tumbler of whiskey closer to his mouth. 

“Hey, Kiddo, long time no see, huh?” Spirit offered, something like a nervous grin on his face. While he was his father, and by extension, all of Death’s Wish’s lawyer, Spirit Albarn had something of a strained relationship with his daughter, whom Kid had become rather close friends with over the years. Even though his opinion may have been biased in one way or another, Kid didn’t think any less of the man, especially not after certain information had come to light-- or tried to not think any less of him, at least. 

“Yeah, long time. How’re you doin’, Spirit?” Kid returned easily, eyeing the tumblers of whiskey with a dusty pang of thirst in his throat. Death returned his stare before moving from his chair to get a bottle of water from the mini fridge he kept beneath his desk. Kid accepted it gratefully, though he wilted a little under the heat of his father’s stare. He still did think of him as that little kid who had been running around playing cowboys at age five, but Kid couldn’t really blame him. He’d been the only person raising him, his only parent, and despite the appearances from godparents-- present company included-- and pseudo-aunts and sort-of-uncles Kid still held a deep, reverent affection for his father. He’d viewed the man as his hero ever since he’d been old enough to understand the concept, something brave and larger than life, untouchable, unkillable. 

“So, Kid,” Death began, steepling his fingers over a spread of papers Kid hadn’t the time to attempt reading upside-down, “as I’m sure you’ve guessed by now, I plan to retire soon.” 

But of course, every hero had to fall sometime. Every statue had to come crumbling down, gilded lead breaking down, down, down, pulled down by angry protestors with ropes and crowbars or finally succumbing to the ever moving sands of time. 

Kid’s heart dropped out of his chest to join his stomach on the floor, bloody and leaking, his chest an empty, aching cavern for all to see, ribs cracked open like wishbones. 

“And that means that someone will have to inherit my position, and, furthermore, be officially written into my will.” 

Kid felt nauseous, sick down to the very stomach that he didn’t have anymore. 

The thought of his father, old and dying, lain out in a hospital bed like the one Kid had been bound to not so long ago, flickered on the inside of his eyelids. He wasn’t old by any means, somewhere in his mid sixties and still just as spry as he had been twenty, thirty years ago, but now the crows feet around his eyes seemed that much deeper. The laugh lines carved out around his mouth seemed cavernous, like they were going to open up and swallow the man whole, turn his skin a pasty grey, ashen, crumbling to dust beneath the desperate touch of Kid’s fingertips. 

“Which leaves me with two options: yourself, or… your brother.” 

Kid’s stomach clenched. He felt like dry heaving. Acidic bile crawled up the back of his throat, the dark little creature that had made a nest in his stomach not but minutes earlier purring in contentment at his pain. Kid nodded stiffly, gripping the fabric of his jeans between aching fingers. 

He would never concede to Kid over his brother. His brother, the elder, who everything would go to by birthright. His brother, with that wan, lecherous grin as wide and malicious and omnipresent as the moon, following him like a specter. He could feel the burning grip of fingers on his shoulder, intent on bruising tender skin, gripping so hard it felt as though his bones would shatter to dust if Kid so much as breathed. 

He exhaled, shuddering, and it felt akin to the breath taken after a deep, grieving sob. 

“I’d prefer to bequeath it all to you, but I need to know if-” 

A series of loud knocks sounded from the front door, so heavy and desperate it felt like whoever was on the other side was attempting to break the door down. Death’s brow quirked in confusion, standing with the creak of his high-backed leather chair, waving off Mifune as he went to answer it. Kid stood, following his father like an aimless ghost, padding along silently behind his broad, suit-clad shoulders. Visitors were the only ones who ever used the front door, as everyone who lived and worked there used the side, which opened directly into the mudroom. Even people who didn’t work or live at Death’s Wish but were familiar with the family used the side door, as the front had become something akin to reserved only for special occasions. The doors had remained unlocked during the day, up until two years ago, as everyone knew Death’s Wish welcomed wanderers with open arms. 

Death wrenched open the door, looking as though he’d give just about anything to have his trusty shotgun in hand at the moment, narrowly avoiding being punched in the face by a much shorter figure as they reeled back for another desperate knock. Kid peered around his father, grimacing. 

“Justin?” Death asked, concern bright in his voice. The priest never came out onto the ranch proper, not even for emergencies. Yet here he was, wheezing as if he had just run a mile, bent over with hands on his jean-clad knees. “What’re you doing out here? Not that I don’t appreciate the surprise.” 

“He’s back,” the pastor wheezed, turning a pleading, blue eyed gaze up at the taller man, something apologetic and begging in his expression. “Asura’s back. He’s in town.” 

Kid had never been less happy to see the man in his entire life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so much for reading! im so excited for the direction this story is going in and so very glad y'all're here to witness it with me! as always, comments, questions, and concrit are always appreciated! ^v^


	5. i heard him howling as he passed me by

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kid panics, death helps, and black star probes for a little information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long time no update! so sorry about that, i've been horribly busy and the current state of the world isn't helping my mental or physical health all that much haha. that being said, trigger warning for a depiction of a meltdown experience from an autistic person's point of view in the first half of this chapter. if you read this and feel i need to add any more trigger warnings for it, please let me know! otherwise, happy reading!

Kid felt like he was watching the events unfold before him from somewhere outside his body, distant and liquid. His movements were slow and staggering like he was trapped in molten amber, slowly crystallizing through, freezing him as a spectre of terror and shock to lay hapless at the feet of an impending storm. The old ranch house was rattling down to its foundations in that very moment, though the earth had never been stiller, not so much as a gust of wind to blow chalky red dirt in whippoorwills against the mesa.

“Come in, come in,” Death ushered the priest in from where he stood panting at the doorstep, face red from the boiling sun overhead and doubtless exertion, collar stuck to the skin of his fair, freckled neck with sweat. Kid felt himself move out of the way without moving at all, saw his own feet stumble back on the floorboards in the direction of the kitchen. The room felt far too small, then, walls closing in around his head and threatening to collapse on him, suffocating, amber pouring down his throat, clogging his nose, his ears, his eyes. He couldn’t breathe.

He felt a hand on his shoulder and shuddered away, jerking on instinct, crackling television static taking every available space for thought in his overheated skull. The ranch house was moving around him, teeming with far too much activity, people coming in from the mudroom, white noise of conversation filling the air. Justin collapsed against the creaky old leather couch, with its uneven cracks in the once-glossy hide, a touch too far to the left to be in the perfect center.

“I’ll get you some water, Justin, stay right there-” Death fluttered about, worry drawn deep in the creases of his aging face. His broad shoulder brushed just barely against Kid’s as he moved into the kitchen and it _burned._

“Kid?” Someone was speaking to him, far too close to his ear, crackling white noise on static on interference, a beeping trill at the base of his skull driving cracks further and further into the root of his spinal cord where it plugged into his brain. He was detached and floating and cold and hot and stuck and breathing too fast and couldn’t breathe at all. “Kid, you alright?”

He slowly turned to face the source of the abhorrent white noise, slowly, far too slowly, skull catching against his spine with every tick to the right like an old combination lock that gave away its code with every rattling turn. Spirit’s concerned face came into view, and since when had his hair been so red? Red, bright red, blood red on the concrete red, blood against Kid’s baby soft skin red on pink on brown on red on red.

Kid felt his mouth open, dropped like a marionette with its strings cut, but nothing came out except what he could only assume was a pouring flood of amber, the amber that clogged up his arteries and his lungs and his brain. Spirit’s face dropped, hands coming close too close grabbing the hem of Kid’s sleeve close too close tugging close Too _Close-_

Kid dropped to the ground with a wail, unheeding of the dust on the smooth wooden floor nor the aching, burning, throbbing of his hip and knee and thigh, hands held tight over the crown of his head like a cage. His fingers were touching, were too close and too hot, he could feel every fiber of his hair against his palms and the thread count of his jeans against his knees and the way the wood underneath him swirled in uneven patterns like the cinnamon in a slice of cinnamon swirl banana nut bread. He was distantly aware of being watched, of heads turned to him in concern and curiosity and pity and shame, shame burning hot in his gut even as he rocked ceaselessly on the floor, miserable, warbling wails eeking out of his mouth with every movement. He hurt, his body hurt, his head hurt, his very soul hurt and it throbbed with the ache of long healed bone being snapped anew, of repressed memory surging to the surface with a wave of red on red.

“Kid? Oh, Kid, I’m so sorry-” there were hands on him, cold, cold even through the fabric of his pearl snap button down, cold and dry and spanning the entirety of his shoulder blade like they had ever since he was but a toddler and the annual fireworks show for the fourth of July sent him spiralling into a meltdown hours after being put to bed. He was distantly aware of concerned murmuring, slowly growing in volume as he was wrenched off the floor and lofted into familiar arms, still strong even though Kid was far too big for this, far too old to be carried about by his father as he rocked and wailed at twenty-three years of age. Death turned, covering Kid’s near ear with a single palm and snapping at the gathered conglomerate of ranch hands and priest and lawyer, “Well? Don’t you all have work to do? Get to it!”

The room hushed with a flurry of activity, ranch hands scuttling out of the room and into the oppressive Arizona heat again, a few splitting off to begin supper in the kitchen. Death walked past the old leather couch, Kid still in his arms, still rocking, still whining like a wounded dog, murmuring just loud enough to be heard as he passed. “Spirit, get Justin sorted out.”

Kid had little cognizant idea of what passed between his father picking him up off the living room floor and carrying him to the upstairs bathroom, where he was gently deposited on the tile of his bathroom, his own bathroom, with the cool, smooth white tile beneath his hands that had never once been stained red on white on red. Soft, soothing murmurs in his ear, a looming presence at his side as Kid rocked and whined and pressed his hands flat to the cold tile, shivering despite the warmth that rose to the second story of the ranch house.

“Kid, I’m so sorry, Daividh, I truly am.” his father murmured, soft and low and crooning like an old blues song. Kid shuddered, still somewhere between his body and a thick amber haze, just barely cognizant enough to recognize his own full first name when it was being employed. “Do you need anything? Water? A cold glass? Meds?”

Kid shook his head at each suggestion, too overwhelmed still to attempt speech, even as the delirious buzzing of television static in his brain slowly simmered into an uncomfortable hum, like a yellowjacket hive from ten feet away. He’d found one, one summer, as a curious pre-teen far too interested in moping around and pretending like his life on the ranch was too boring for the likes of him to engage in, stuck between the roots of the shoestring acacia that towered over the furthest corner of the northern pasture. It had taken hours for the swelling of the stings all across his skinny arms and knobbly knees to go down, hours spent tear-soaked sitting on the edge of the kitchen counter, Death holding a cold compress to the stings and admonishing him not to mess with yellowjacket hives ever again, lest he find a similar fate.

The inside of his head was plastered in yellowjacket stings, pulsing, throbbing, that amber haze clouding around the stings and crystallizing till the visceral pain quieted to something he could shove down and lock away. He exhaled shakily, pressing the tip of his right middle finger against the center of his left palm, rocking his right hand back and forth in the sign for _“medicine”_ he’d been taught when first learning ASL. It had been the better part of a year since Kid had had last needed to resort to anything but spoken words to get his point across, and the shame of it burned low in his gut, alongside the pitying stares of his fellow ranch hands that clung resolutely to the inside of his ribs.

Death rose from his crouch at Kid’s side on the cold bathroom tile, pacing away till nothing but the black of his house slippers were visible through the dark fringe that hung over Kid’s eyes. He returned with a pair of unassuming green and yellow pills and a dixie cup of water, gently urging Kid to take them with a few hushed words. The pills went down bitter, even as they cut through the fog of panic clinging to him like a second skin.

They sat, crouched together, father and son, on the bathroom tile for an uncountable stretch of time, Death speaking low and gentle to his son till the exhaustion of a weathered meltdown sunk into Kid’s slender frame. He sagged like a man weighed down with far more than fatigue, head turned to look anywhere but his father’s eyes, even as the man urged him to his feet with a gentle guiding hand on each of his elbows.

Kid felt like a child again, as his father helped him stand and limp the few short strides to his bed, helped him undress out of the clothes dusted thick with red dirt. It had been so long-- years, maybe-- since he’d needed anyone, even Death himself’s, help with a meltdown, with a panic attack, with a state of his overwhelmed psyche turned volatile. Kid felt like a child, clothed in nothing but his boxers and an old band t-shirt worn soft around the seams, tucked beneath the grounding weight of his heavy weighted blanket and thick comforter.

It was only as he was drifting into a tense, dreamless sleep that Kid registered the kiss pressed against his temple, the hushed words he could barely make out, the gentle brush of his black-white hair off his forehead as his father tucked him into bed. The wooden floorboards creaked gently, as if the house itself sensed Kid’s fragile state, a sliver of light cutting through the room and fading into nothing again as the door was opened and closed.

Kid slept, and he dreamt of nothing.

It felt as though right as Black Star was stepping into the ranch house that he was being ushered out again, given just barely enough time to stuff his boots back on before being shucked out of the mudroom and into the oppressive heat of the Nevada afternoon once again. His stomach growled impatiently, and though he knew it would be a while yet before Tsubaki so much as had the calf fries cleaned and ready to fry, he whined with a kind of hungry impatience that one could not express in words. Not one who had already spent the morning in the heat on the back of an old dirty truck watching cowboys rope calves and had sunburn forming along his bare shoulders and neck, at least.

The other ranch hands roamed about aimlessly, not seeming quite sure of what to do with themselves even with Death’s irritated persistence that they had work to do yet, some of them already taking up what few rocking chairs sat on the wraparound porch, turned to face the horse paddock. Black Star wasn’t exactly one to remember names, but he at least had down a few of the more important players in his dusty dude-ranch story thus far, and Tsubaki and Crona were missing. That meant they must’ve been relegated to kitchen duty.

Kid was missing as well, though he’d peeled off from the group long before, having hurried back to the barn to untack his horse and into the house with the kind of festering malevolence about him that made even Black Star reconsider an approach.

But that was all a moot point at the moment, considering he didn’t even know where Kid was and they seemed to be locked out of the house at the moment, reminiscent of the time Black Star had come home from a party so late into the wee hours of the morning that Nygus had plain refused to let him come back inside the apartment and locked him out altogether. He’d spent the rest of the morning hours curled up against the door, till she opened it to leave for work and he collapsed backwards, slamming his head into the floor just inside the doorframe. It had done nothing to help his hangover, to say the least.

Black Star shook his head, electing instead to hunker down on the porch just above the steps leading down into the area where the staff parked their cars-- trucks, mostly-- and wait. He couldn’t exactly place a name, but the mysterious, functionally-mute foreman paced back and forth along the dirt just before the porch railing, flicking what looked like a butterfly knife open-closed-open-closed-open with practiced movements as he walked, chewing the ever present toothpick at the corner of his mouth. One of the blond sisters, the shorter one, was gone as well, along with the foreman’s young daughter. The taller of the two blonds sat collapsed in a rocking chair, dark glower on her face, and the only other person Black Star could assign a name to that wasn’t his direct employer sat on the other chair a few feet away from her.

The Albarns had always been good friends of the Nygus-Barretts, with a young(er) Black Star and Maka finding themselves frequently partnered together during evenings their respective guardians spent drinking and laughing and talking, or sequestered together at the end of the table during dinners at one of two apartments. As the two of them grew and Black Star continued to get into trouble and Maka continued to get on honor rolls, Maka’s parent’s split, leaving Maka to live further from the edge of the city and closer to the small town where her father worked at a legal firm till she up and abandoned the whole ordeal to work on a ranch altogether. Black Star hadn’t ever paid quite enough attention to learn what ranch it was, exactly, that Maka worked on, but he supposed the present was a good enough time as any to figure it out.

Maka looked just as dour and stuck-up as she had when they were kids, even as she slumped bonelessly in a rocking chair with more of her body out of it than actually was in the seat, face screwed up in something dark and sour. Black Star turned her way, already bored with watching the foreman pace and flick his knife closed-open-closed-open-closed.

“Hey, Maks,” Black Star called, turned fully around with his legs crossed and hands tucked beneath his thighs, palms rough against the scratchy floorboards of the porch. Maka turned his way with a glare that could melt steel, or was very well trying, though she didn’t move from her boneless slump even so.

“What do you want, Star.” It was a statement, not a question, though Black Star thought he’d answer anyway. He was a benevolent kind of god like that. Still, it probably meant something that she had used her nickname for him in address, as bitter as she was being.

Was it still a nickname if the name it was based off of was a nickname in the first place? Or did it cancel out, like a double negative? Whatever.

“Just wondering what’s got your panties all in a knot. Aren’t’cha happy to see your old friend Black Star?” he asked, grin slowly eeking across his sunburnt face, chin resting in his palm and elbow against his knee. Maka rolled her eyes, though her voice came out a touch less acidic.

“Dunno, maybe I would be if’n he hadn’t completely abandoned our friendship soon as I got a job,” she said, looking more bored than pissed at this point. The tall blonde snorted, picking at the beds of her nails anxiously in a way Black Star hadn’t seen her do yet in all his time here. She’d already taken her long, golden blonde hair out of the high tail it had been in earlier, though the ball cap remained stuck firmly over her head, oceans of blonde falling in waves that looked far too well-kempt for a ranch hand. Then again, he still resolutely stuck his eye-searingly blue hair into spikes every morning, even as much as Crona complained that they only had one bathroom to share between the two of them and would you please not take up so much time in the morning, Black Star.

“Hey, its not like I wasn’t curious where you went! No one told me anything is all,” Black Star protested, leaning forward on his hands. The foreman momentarily paused in his knife-flipping to look between the two of him, quickly resuming with a barely detectable roll of dusky brown eyes. The taller blonde glanced from Maka to Black Star and back again, voicing a question for the both of them even as it was clear she was intent on only addressing Maka.

“Y’all know each other?” she asked, moving from picking at her cuticles to the chipped red polish that still clung stubbornly to the nails themselves.

“Childhood friends, y’could say,” Maka offered, though she didn’t seem all too sure of it.

“Childhood bestfriends, excuse you, Maks,” Black Star countered. The barest hint of a grin crooked up the corner of Maka’s mouth before it returned to the thin line she’d been pursing them into. He did it, everyone go home, the great Black Star got Maka Albarn to smile. “Who else would you have rigged Ox Ford’s locker to spray him in shaving cream with?”

Maka turned red, turning away with a pout. The blonde snorted, and the foreman finally, finally stopped pacing, tucking his closed knife into the high waistband of his jeans with a single deft movement. He raised a pale brow, looking for all the world completely unamused. “Really, Maka?”

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!” Maka shouted, sitting up in her haste to defend her own actions. Black Star cackled, leaning back nonchalantly on his hands. Finally, that sour mood had lifted. He couldn’t stand it when people were upset for no good reason.

“A lot of things seem like a good idea at the time. Don’t mean they were,” the foreman offered, his thumbs tucked through fraying belt loops.

“Not you too, Mifune,” Maka whined, sliding back down in her rocking chair. Mifune, finally, Black Star had a name for the mysterious foreman-- one that he could have probably learned much earlier if he had been paying attention to anything other than the livestock and dogs and the mysterious Kid Death, but he was still coming out on top nonetheless. “Kid already teases me enough for it.”

“He heard about this ‘fore I did?” Tall Blonde asked, swatting playfully at Maka’s knee. “Traitor.”

“Naw, you don’t get to play that card here, Liz Thompson. That was back whens he was bedridden and I spent every minute I wasn’t workin’ at his bedside, remember?” Maka corrected, holding up a single finger. Black Star frowned, brow creasing in thought.

“Bedridden?” he asked. Immediately a shadow fell over Maka’s face again and he cursed himself internally. Finally, he figured out a sliver of a detail from Kid’s mysterious past no one would tell him about and he immediately fucked it up. To his eternal surprise, Mifune spoke up.

“Kid suffered an… accident, shall we say, about two years back. He spent the better part of a year in bed, couldn’t walk none,” the porch steps creaked beneath his weight as Mifune mounted them, coming to stand next to Black Star. He removed the toothpick from its ever present home at the corner of his mouth to spit over Black Star’s head and into the red dirt with a grimace. “Same bastard that had him bedridden is the one who cause his meltdown today.”

Black Star thought for a moment, brow furrowing further, “The… priest?”

“Naw, Justin wouldn’t hurt a fly, not like that.” Liz waved away his concern, though her expression remained tense, dark, like the sky right as a storm came rolling over the hills and unleashed a flood overhead. “Asura. He’s back in town, accordin’ to Justin.”

“And he’ll sooner so much as look at Kid as have a bullet between his eyes--”

“Mifune.” Maka cut the foreman off with a sharp look. Her tone made it clear there would be no plotting of murder right now, not here. Mifune turned his head with a grimace, though he remained silent.

“And who is Asura?” Black Star hazarded. He had a feeling this went much deeper than he thought.

A terse silence fell over the gathered hands. Somewhere, a crow cawed. Mifune spoke up again, clipped, low.

“His older brother. Same one that got his leg broke and manipulated him for years. He’s back in town.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you so so much to everyone who has stuck through with this fic! i've read every one of your comments and i cherish them so much. i know this chapter is a little shorter than usual but considering the content i felt it better to get something out there if only to tide everyone over until we get into a bit... meatier of content. for regards of kid's meltdown, the kid i write is autistic + OCD and has depression, anxiety, and C-PTSD. i myself am autistic and struggle with these mental illnesses, but if anyone has issues with my portrayal of kid please let me know. i myself am not OCD but some of my loved ones are and i take their experiences and input into account when writing kid. 
> 
> as always, please leave any comments, concerns, and questions you may have! i love reading them and am always willing to talk about this AU. stay safe everyone <3


	6. cause that man’s lessons had a price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> kid recovers, a story is told, and a plan is formed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for fairly graphic description of a traumatic injury, and harm against a horse.

It was almost sunset when Kid awoke.

He heaved himself into a reluctant sitting position, rubbing at the stinging ache in his eyes leftover from the salty aftertaste of tears, wincing as his left leg gave a dull throb from ankle to hip as he attempted to gather his legs beneath him.

Socked feet met the coolness of an air conditioned floor, so unlike the pervasive heat that he had been working in hours earlier, feeling the remnants of dust and sweat on his skin even through the shower he’d taken… how many hours earlier? It had been just before noon when they finished with the calves, and he’d caught a glance at the clock in his father’s office reading somewhere around half past noon just before Justin Law came bearing bad news akin to the way a crow is a harbinger of sorrow to come.

Kid rubbed more forcefully at his eyes, standing hesitantly with a crack of every joint from floor to shoulders. He felt disgusting, even beyond the faint film of his psyche constantly screaming a warning about the disease he was sure to contract simply from coming into contact with anything outside his room, aftershocks of the meltdown he’d had earlier clinging to his skin like a haggard coat that he desperately wanted to shed but couldn’t keep from holding onto. He had no idea how long it had even been since his meltdown-- meltdown, christ, was he a child still? Couldn’t even handle his own emotions like a proper adult anymore, breaking down in front of family and coworkers and friends alike.

Kid fumbled for the cane that took up residence in the space between his nightstand and bed, feeling a voice that was very much not his own and had long since taken up space in the back of his head rent-free start up with another tirade about how weak and useless he was to rely on it again, he had gone so long, was the brace not enough? Kid sighed, a weary weight settling over his shoulders. He was too tired to fight against his own head.

He’d struggled with the compulsive, obsessive, intrusive thought patterns of OCD ever since childhood, but they had kicked into high gear around the time of the accident, descending upon fresh trauma and pecking at the carrion of his thought patterns like vultures and sending them into overdrive. Even two years after the accident still, he flinched and receded into the safety of his own head when his older brother was brought up, usually by folks in town who didn’t know any better than to ask after Asura’s whereabouts. Death made it abundantly clear that there was to be no speaking of Asura on the premises of Death’s Wish, if only for the sake of Kid’s mental health than any possible tarnish on his own reputation.

Hades Thanatos Kindred Death Sr. was not a man easily concerned with the thoughts of others, but he could not have made it clearer how he felt about the actions taken by the older of his two sons, even if he rarely spoke of it and hadn’t the full details of the situation. Few actually knew what Asura had been like; and that included Kid, who had been the victim of his torments; Mifune, who had sussed it out through careful observation and days spent with Kid in the hospital; Maka and Liz, who were Kid’s best friends and confidants; and Asura himself.

In fact, few outside of the residents of the Death family ranch knew the true extent of the accident and how it had led to Asura being disowned from the family, beyond the fact that Death himself no longer talked about his elder son and wished for gossip about his family not to be spread. Despite that, people still talked, and as it was with small towns, the incident between the two Death sons had been the biggest scandal of the last decade. While many had witnessed the incident at the state fair that led to Kid’s disabling injury, few could say they actually had any clear details about it. As far as many people knew, Kid’s horse had spooked, he had been grievously injured, and Asura had left not days after.

Really, he hadn’t been any more than disowned, deciding to pack up and leave the town and presumably the state entirely of his own volition. There hadn’t been enough evidence to file a proper restraining order with, even as much as Mifune and Death pleaded with Kid to come forward. A kind of primal, fight or flight, animal fear held Kid’s tongue still, and he could still feel it overtake him when discussion of his brother veered towards more than the mere mention of his name.

He went through the motions of gathering clean clothes-- pajamas, a fresh pair of boxers, soft socks without the harsh seams that left his feet feeling rubbed raw-- and hobbled to the bathroom, head ducked down low in case anyone happened upon the second story landing. The rational part of his brain reminded him that few of the people here actually cared about his meltdowns as long as he was safe, while the rest of his brain screamed that he was a shameful, pathetic, piece of garbage hardly worth more than the dogshit on their heels.

He dumped his clothes over the counter of the sink with a huff, setting his cane aside and turning to look in the wide bathroom mirror. Dark bags stretched beneath his pale eyes, which were rimmed red and bloodshot. His hair was a mess, sticking up in different directions and the three white streaks at his temple caught in the swirl of a cowlick. He was even paler than usual, which was saying something, considering his chronic inability to catch more than a slight farmer’s tan on his vitiligo skin. The pale patches on his face seemed even more like the patternings of a skull in that moment, sickly grin stretching impossibly wide on his face, but he blinked and it was gone. He grunted, scrubbing a hand down his face and peeling away the sweat soaked clothes from his skin to drop unceremoniously to the cool tile floor. He regarded his shower chair with a disdain for a moment, before settling into it and letting the numbing heat of hot water wash over him till it ran cold.

A therapist had said something about “psychosomatic symptoms” to him once, in a discussion that had delved so deep into his trauma so fast his injured leg began to tremble with shooting lines of pain. Physical symptoms that were worsened by mental illness, if he recalled correctly, which of course he did. He recalled everything correctly. He even recalled the pale sliver of a malicious smile on a paler face, directed at him every moment his father wasn’t watching, like a conspiratorial secret only the two of them were privy to that spelled only his doom whenever there was no one else around.

He perfectly recalled the scent of arena dirt and sweat and heat, thick in his nostrils like expensive cologne. Of the anticipation building so high in his stomach he almost felt nauseous. Of the smooth slick of Beelzebub’s hide, warm and firm beneath his palms slick with sweat, dun hairs coming loose against his fingers. Of the agitated snort of Beelzebub’s breath, the way he simply wouldn’t settle beneath him, tense even as Kid let himself melt into the saddle and the impatient tap of nervous hooves against the concrete holding chamber.

The countdown trill that ended in a buzz and the clack of metal gates being thrown open. The wind against his face, leather warm and worn against calloused fingers, the creak of his saddle and the flap of stirrup leathers against his horse’s side. Hoofbeats even louder in his ears than the enthusiastic cheer of the gathered crowd, bouncing around the metal stadium. The white of Beelzebub’s eyes as he came around each leaf of the clover leaf pattern, barrels mere centimeters from brushing against his sides, against Kid’s denim clad legs, pumping in a fervent pattern.

A gunshot. A scream. Dirt in his face, in his eyes, pressure on his leg.

A snap.

Pain. Unending, sharp, persistent. Blood, soaking the dirt in a wide stain. Plastic shrapnel in his skin, the white of bone. Screaming. The rush of blood in his ears. Hooves against dirt. His leg at the wrong angle.

Darkness.

Lights, too bright. People on all sides. Muted chatter, sounding insistent but so far away. The rush of blood in his ears like water. A mask over his face, uncomfortable, pressing into his skin in a way that was sure to leave marks, muffling his words. Beelzebub, nowhere to be seen. Where was his horse? Where was his horse?

Witnessing his body from the outside, floating on nothing, barely clinging to the sight of white lights and white ceiling and white sheets and white hair. White knuckles gripping the railings of his bedside. Wide, white eyes, leaning over him, towering. Pain so close but so far, like reaching through a plastic film to the other side, wrapping around his fingers and keeping him from truly coming in contact with it. Where was his horse?

He only noticed the water was running cold when he began to shiver.

Dinner had been a weary affair, especially after what Kid had been through. Another chair had been rustled up from somewhere for Justin, Spirit taking Kid’s usual place at the table. Tsubaki and Crona graciously cleaned and prepared the majority of the Rocky Mountain oysters for supper that evening, the rest stored in the garage meat-only chest freezer. Feeding a large amount of people year-round meant that buying food in bulk was cheapest, so a multitude of freezers and fridges for storing animal products was a necessity. Tsubaki greatly enjoyed sales days at the local Costco.

Now, with supper having finished hours earlier and the dishes cleaned away, the inhabitants of the house sat scattered around the living room in various states of disarray. Mifune was in the midst of putting a concerned Angela down for bed, who was reluctant to sleep without getting to say goodnight to Kid, who happened to be one of her favorite people. Justin had been reluctant to return to his own home after relaying the news, given his own rocky and storied past with Asura, and Spirit stayed for moral— and legal— support.

The Thompsons were squished together in the loveseat, with Tsubaki in a corner of the long leather couch with her girlfriend tucked under her arm, Crona curled up between Maka and Justin. Black Star occupied the space on the floor where Crona’s feet would have gone, had their long legs not been tucked up to their chest, fiddling with their folded hands. Spirit sat with a tumbler of whisky in one of the two leather recliners bracketing the fireplace, Death in its twin on the other side, a matching tumbler in his own fine-boned hand. Even with the multitude of people in the room, there was the distinct feeling someone was missing.

“So,” Black Star began, ever the first to break the silence, “was anyone gonna tell me what was up here, or…?”

“Black Star-“ Maka started in a warning growl, aiming a kick at her childhood friend’s shoulder, but Death cut her off with a raised hand. The kick connected anyhow, and Black Star grunted more in indignation than pain, grabbing Maka’s ankle and tossing her skinny leg aside. Maka was deceptively small, considering how hard even a light blow from her hurt. Black Star rubbed at his shoulder with a glare in her direction. She stuck her tongue out at him in return.

“No, no, he’s right. It’s been too long since I’ve started keeping secrets from you all.” Death exhaled slowly, rubbing at his temples.

“Sir-“ Liz began, chewing her lower lip. “I’m not sure this is really, er, yer story to tell, idn’t it?”

“Kid would never tell it himself.” Tsubaki pointed out. An irritated flush rose to Liz’s face yet she settled back against the loveseat, tugging on the brim of her ball cap. “It hurts too much.”

“Which is precisely why it needs to be told now, before he rejoins us.” Death finished. He leaned back in his recliner with the creak of old leather, for a moment looking precisely as old as he was. Black Star had spent little time on the ranch, but from what he knew of their enigmatic boss, he tended to be a lively man with a jovial disposition that hardly belied his sixty-something-odd years. Maybe his fifty-something-odd years? Whatever, it wasn’t really important.

“And before Mifune gets back, too,” he heard Maka add under her breath, just quiet enough that no one else was supposed to hear. Tsubaki shushed her for it, tucking her girlfriend closer against her side and twining their legs together. Black Star resisted the urge to retch. Ugh, couples.

Death ran a hand down his face, taking a deep, nearly shuddering breath, before launching directly into a story few of them knew but he would never be able to forget.

_It was hot out, hot enough that sweat was already collecting under the collar of his button down despite the fact that he had yet to even mount up. Kid wiped at his brow, tugging at his snakeskin boots a final time, worn jeans tucked into the confines of the black leather. He replaced his hat, black and broad brimmed, on his head, bangs pushed up and away from his face. With his shaggy bangs finally up out of his eyes, one could see the few white hairs in his left eyebrow if they looked close enough, or the way his hooded hazel eyes had a ring of shuddering gold just around the pupil, small against the bright light of the afternoon._

_The state-wide stock show was a raucous affair, sprawling through buildings reserved for livestock and horse shows at any other time of the year, food stands and trucks set up in the edges of the parking lot that was choked with cars and trucks of every size. Livestock trailers ambled around the grounds for days before and after, hauling in pigs, goats, sheep, cows, horses, donkeys, and mules to be shown and sold. Chickens and ducks took up cages in residence alongside rabbits and quail, filling the long cement show halls with a cacophony of clucking and chirping. People milled about, wearing everything from their Sunday best to stained and frayed livestock handling clothes. People waited in stands for shows, chattering amongst themselves as livestock were paraded around the sand arenas._

_The state title for young adult barrel racer was up for grabs, now, as it was once a year, every year, and Kid had every intention of making it his own._

_He had been barrel racing since childhood, since he was old enough to weave his father’s old horse through the clover leaf pattern, overturning more blue barrels than he left upright in a corner of the horse corral sequestered off for his riding lessons. Other children from town came to the ranch to learn to ride, many of them his few friends, though none had cottoned on with the kind of tenacity that Kid himself had. His father joked among friends that Kid spent more time with horses than people, but horses just made sense in a way that people did not to a young Kid. An older Kid would come to learn that horses didn’t_ _possess the intricate social conventions humans did, with easy to register body language and simple wants; food, water, shelter, and companionship. Needs that Kid was more than happy to provide._

_He had picked up a successful career in barrel racing, dabbling here and there with reigning and cattle roping, but none of it has piqued his interest as much as racing did. He lived for the thrill of it, the sharp lean into turns around the blue barrels, the skiff of his own legs against plastic, the constant churning of his horse’s legs against the dirt, throwing up a rudder of dirt behind them as they careened through the clover leaf pattern again, and again, and again. His father ushered him on with nothing but pride in his eyes, nothing but love for his son and his love of the sport. His elder son had never had quite the interest in racing or even in ranching that Kid possessed, much to Death’s infinite chagrin._

_As he grew Kid collected ribbons and trophies for junior racing tourneys across the state, going on to earn his first title as state junior racer at sixteen and hold onto it even past his eighteenth birthday, until the point where he no longer qualified as a junior racer and would have to move up to the bigger leagues. He had taken a few years off to finish schooling, to wait for his new horse to grow and train him into his own ideal racer, going from fumbling colt to strong, skilled gelding that yielded under the slightest touch of Kid’s legs against his side or the barest shifting of his seat in the heavy leather saddle. As it stood, this would be the year Kid would be competing in the young adult stakes, and hopefully take home another state title after a few months of collecting smaller titles on Beelzebub’s back. He knew his father was in the stands, along with his brother, the other ranch hands, and a smattering of family friends._

_Kid stood from the hay bale he’d been resting on, brushing the stray hay from the back of his jeans and turning the corner to the stall where Beelzebub waited, tacked up in all but his bridle. He blinked in surprise at the dark head in light clothes that came into view, scarves wound around a thin neck despite the heat._

_“Asura? I thought you were waitin’ with Dad,” Kid said, gathering Beelzebub’s bridle from the saddle stand along the outside wall of the stall. His brother gave a shrug, that familiar, unsettling smile curling his thin lips at the edges. Asura’s smile always looked like something forced onto his face, carved into his skin with the edges of a serrated knife. His dark eyes flashed beneath darker hair, smoothing a bony hand down Beelzebub’s black muzzle. Something uneasy stirred in Kid’s gut, even past the usual unease he felt around his brother. Asura had never taken to horses in an affectionate way. He didn’t even have a horse of his own, despite their father’s offers of one._

_“Just wishin’ Beelzebub luck before you go out, y’know?” Asura said, giving a final pat to Beelzebub’s cheek before drawing back. Beelzebub regarded_ _him with black eyes ringed in white, more white than Kid expected to see on his horse, given the fact that he was used to competition environments. His ears flickered back nervously, pinning briefly to his neck as Kid approached with his bridle._

_“Hey, don’t get shy on me, now,” Kid muttered, pressing a thumb into the corner of Beelzebub’s mouth so he’d open to accept the bit, something he hasn’t had to do since Beelzebub was a freshly broken three-year-old. Asura shrugged, hands tucked into the deep pockets of his baggy pants._

_“Maybe he’s just nervous. Y’all haven’t competed at this level before, after all.”_

_Kid hummed, smoothing out the chin strap and fastening it beneath Beelzebub’s chin, before moving onto the throatlatch at his jaw. Beelzebub gave an uneasy snort, shying back again as Kid’s hands approached the side of his head. “You didn’t give him anything, did you?”_

_Asura smiled again, and Kid’s gut twisted sickly. “Just a little advice.”_

_Kid did not mention the fact that he didn’t want any advice Asura had to give anywhere near himself or his horse, given the state in which Asura’s closest friends were in. He had seen how that Justin Law kid followed at Asura’s heels like a lovesick puppy, some kind of glaze in his eyes that he couldn’t tear away from Asura’s back. He had never once seen him look Asura in the eyes of his own volition, either, now that he thought about it._

_Asura left as Kid finished the motions of tacking up his horse, though Beelzebub’s anxious air did not fade. He pawed the floor of his stall uneasily, head low and snorting. Kid bummed and clucked his tongue, urging Beelzebub towards the concrete holding hall where they would be waiting among the other competitors for their turn. Kid was fifth to go up, sandwiched between a blond girl on a stocky bay paint and a reedy ginger on an imposing black stock horse._

_He could hear the roar of the crowd through the metal doors at the end of the hall, gassing up each rider as they came rocketing around the turns. Kid counted the seconds down in his head, tapping fingertips against his thigh with each second ticked away. He could beat this. His worst times were better than the ones they were throwing right now. It was hardly even pompous at this point._

_Beelzebub shook his head, glossy blue-black mane whipping every which direction with the movement, stray strands whipping Kid’s hands with a lingering sting. He frowned, urging him forward into the concrete holding chamber, doors folding back into place with a clack of metal against metal. Beelzebub was usually never this nervous, not even at events they’d been to that outnumbered this by thousands of spectators, not even in the darkness of the property in the dead of night, their only light the guiding presence of the moon hung in the black velvet sky far above, distant coyote howls ringing off the walls of the red rock mesa. He was a solid horse, bred from lines of good, hard, honest workers. His dam had been unflappable, a trait he thought had been passed down onto her one and only offspring, but apparently not at the moment._

_Whatever, horses had off days the same as people. A little nerves was no indication that they wouldn’t come blazing out of here with the fastest time anyone had seen in years._

_Kid tensed as the trio of high pitched beeps counting down his turn came trolling through the air, crowd seemingly holding their breath for a moment. A blank gunshot, muffled and powdery sounding, and they were off, doors clanging open against the interior walls of the arena and Beelzebub launching forward in a rear that had his front hooves pounding into the dirt like twin hammers._

_Kid felt himself melt into the saddle, pushing Beelzebub around the cloverleaf turns like liquid, legs pumping against his horse’s sides like pistons, ever urging him faster, faster, cutting around the barrels with mere hairsbreadth to spare. They came ripping around the first barrel with the thud of hooves against hard packed dirt and a roar in his ears that Kid couldn’t decipher was the cheer of the crowd or the rush of his own heartbeat in his ears. Endorphins sparked along his veins, hot and electric, beads of hot sweat rolling down his forehead and instantly cooling in the rush of cold against his face, face forward into the wind generated by their speed alone._

_They came thundering around the second barrel, and now it was so close, so close Kid could almost taste it. He hazarded a glance up at the digital clock on the arena wall, neon red letters against stark black, seating into his eyes like a brand. 16.42 seconds._

_He turned Beelzebub around the last barrel so close he could feel the hard plastic brush against his thigh. It wobbled but remained standing, and that was what was important. They were almost there, coming around the final few strides to turn home._

_It felt like slow motion, from there on._

_A gunshot, one unlike the blank that sent every rider into their turn in the arena. Loud, piercing. Glass shattered somewhere. Somebody screamed._

_Beelzebub, poor, sweet, sturdy Beelzebub, came crashing down on his front knees, rolling to the left and into the barrel with the kind of force that crushed the hard blue plastic and sent chunks of shrapnel digging into Kid’s thigh. A pained scream so human it could have come from Kid, but his mouth had fallen slack in shocked horror, scrabbling for purchase on the saddle horn, trying to piece together the emergency dismount he had been taught ever since childhood in his frazzled brain but the pieces just wouldn’t connect the synapses were firing at half speed he couldn’t think he couldn’t breathe—_

_A hard, harsh snap of bone. Blood, staining the leg of his jeans in a wide wine-dark stain that only spread further by the second. The white of bone peeking through a rip in his pants leg, rubbing against a worn seam. Dirt and sand in his eyes, in his mouth, his hair. His hat falling, skidding across the area floor and tumbling to a stop several feet away. The crushing weight of Beelzebub on his leg only registering as the horse made to get up and the pain finally hit and oh god oh god what happened why did he hurt so much what happened this had all been going so well—_

_Kid screamed, from somewhere primal and animal deep in his terrified, pained soul._

_Everything was blurry from then on out, a constant rush of white colored only by pain, pain, pain. The rush of an ambulance, the rattling of medical supplies in a constant frenetic song, the chatter of first responders as they attempted to put him together in the gurney between the arena and the hospital proper. He would recall, later, that one of the EMTs had been named Harmony, which seemed like such an inconsequential détail at the time but was something he still couldn’t let go of even years later._

Death regarded the room at large, face seemingly sudden sallow, sunken, pale. It was as though telling the story had drained all the blood out of him, his hand shaking as he rose the tumbler glass to his lips, chest rising and falling in a shuddering breath. Somewhere during the course of his recount, Mifune had entered the room, standing just in front of the doorway that lead to the downstairs bedrooms with his hands clenched in fists so tight that his knuckles turned a bloodless white.

He was the first to break the silence, anger hot and heavy in his usually calm voice. “An’ we couldn’t even try him for it—“

“Mifune,” Death spoke up, tiredness evident in his voice. “We’ve had this conversation before, you know how it ends. Please.”

Mifune inhaled, chest puffed with the air of a man about to launch into a righteous tirade, but slowly he deflated, taking the only available seat left on the leather sectional next to Tusbaki. He leant more against the arm of it than actually sat, tension obvious in every line of his body. Tsubaki pattes his arm consolingly, tugging at his shoulder till he leaned down and she whispered something into his ear in a voice too quiet for Black Star to pick up.

“If it helps,” Spirit started, shifting uncomfortably in his chair as all eyes shifted to him. “If he does try anythin’ with Kid— or anyone else— we should have enough evidence to at least put him in a court an’ keep him occupied for a little while.”

“Don’t Kid already have a restrainin’ order filed against him?” Maka asked, having curled so far into the shelter of Tusbaki’s arm as the story was being told that she nearly disappeared, the only visible parts of her her reedy legs and ashen blonde head. “If he breaks it, then he goes to jail, right?”

Spirit drew a hand down his face, fixing his daughter with an apologetic look she did not return. “Sorry, darlin’, it’s a lil more complicated than that. ‘Cause we didn’t technically have enough to file a proper order against him—“

“‘Cause Kid was too scared to testify,” Mifune muttered, just loud enough Black Star was sure the others were meant to hear.

“—Because Kid wouldn’t testify against him, yes, the range he’s allowed in is much… smaller than usual. He can still do a whole helluva lotta shit stirrin’ in town without even touchin’ Death property.” Spirit finished, taking a moment to down the rest of his drink.

“Are we gonna let him?” Justin asked, voice small. For a moment, he looked every bit the scared, anxious he must’ve been years ago, the one who followed Asura around like a lost puppy and obeyed his every whim.

“Like hell we are!” Black Star interjected, shooting up to his feet. “What the fuck is wrong with all of you if you won’t even protect one of your own—“

The room turned with a start at the sound of creaking stair steps, only to see Kid descending the stairs with a scandalized look on his face, flushing a dark pink all the way up to his ears. He cleared his throat, fiddling with the handle of a metallic black cane in one hand, leaning on the railing with the other. “I, uh, had no idea you felt that way about me, Black Star.”

“No one messes with one of mine,” Black Star growled. “Not if they wanna make it out alive.”

If he hadn’t known any better, Black Star could’ve sworn that Kid was smiling.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WELLLLL this surely was a chapter wasn’t it!!! thank you to everyone who has been sticking with me this far, it means a lot! as always, leave comments, questions, and concerns in the comments below!! i hope everyone is staying safe <3

**Author's Note:**

> thank you for reading this far! this chapter is a lot of exposition, but i promise things heat up soon! stick around to see what that subterfuge tag is all about ;3c  
> also math rock is a real music genre that exists and its very good.


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